Isolated
by minky-way
Summary: Sequel to fevered. Part 6 of the Intravenous series. I didn't want to let you go, I just wanted you far away from me.
1. Chapter 1

It's remarkably okay at first, being away from Mizuki again, he can go back to what he's used to, wandering the streets for the day, snacking on the biscuits in his bag and basically making a nuisance of himself in the most innocent way he can. He's forgotten that beyond the four walls of the bartender's apartment, he commands power just by existing, that people see him and divert routes, or glare or spit insults that bounce right off him.

He's thicker skinned than he was, and none of their comments so much as scrape the surface, ignoring the father who pulls his children away from the wall he leans on, blinking blankly into the face of one youth dumb enough to demand they fight. His cold stare is enough to deter him from his idiotic plan and he jogs back to his friends with his tail between his legs, suitably put in his place by Sly's mere presence. It's nice, he decides, to be somewhere people are afraid of him, take him as something serious instead of actually acting like he's worth knowing.

But he can't stay on the streets forever and despite the air still being warm as summer transfers into autumn, he knows he needs to find a place to sleep and after weeks of being in a memory foam, king-size bed, he doesn't want to end up back in his warehouse.

She isn't expecting him, and he forgets he's unwelcome. But she lets him in anyway, warms them up leftovers from the fridge and they both watch each other when the other isn't looking.

She's seems smaller, like she's lost weight, her hair is fading to pastel and grey infringes around her wrinkled temple. When she stands up it takes a longer than it used to. Her hip clicks.

She winces and rubs at it but Sly pretends not to notice. It's then he remembers that he shouldn't be here, that his features belong to another, that all he'd have to do was grow out and dye his hair and speak softly and wear different clothes and he could be someone else entirely. Someone that she actually wants.

He can't stay there long, and after two nights of avoiding each other and her choosing not to question why he suddenly doesn't have a place to stay anymore, he decides it's time to quit being in a house where he's not wanted, and leaves before she wakes up.

* * *

That day passes much the same as his first day since they'd ended things, and really Sly would like to say since _Mizuki_ ended things, but honestly his fucking Noiz had been a significant cause for their eternal break, so they are both to blame.

He contemplates what he's going to do now as he sits atop one of his favourite rooftops, perched right on the highest point, some kind of ventilation duct, made of metal that has been warmed by the days sun and is a little too hot on his thighs. It makes sense to just continue life as he had been, enjoying every day for whatever it was, finding a dealer to get back to a sense of normality that involves being high about 80% of the time.

The issue is, he doesn't have any money, Mizuki had given him a fair bit of food, a farewell gift as well as reassurance for him that he won't starve to death while trying to forge his own way again, and that is all well and good but really, a wad of cash would have been far preferable.

Every solution to his problem turns his stomach and he really begins to hate Mizuki, because before they ever met he wouldn't have hesitated to find an illicit way to make some money down a back alley. But now? Now the idea makes him feel a bit sick which is admittedly normal, but for him it means he's without any means of making money to support himself in the tentative way he always has, and it is entirely Mizuki's fault.

He still has one option though, and with irritation bubbling in his gut, he shoulders his bag and makes his way back down into civilisation, and another memory foam bed.

* * *

"Sly, back for round two?"

He rolls his eyes and shoulders past, because he knew Noiz wouldn't be tactful enough to not mention their rather abrupt lunge from tentative friends to people who fucked sometimes, his bag ends up on the floor and he turns Ren on for the first time in what feels like months. It's been at least one, and he supposes hard logic might be useful now he's back to street living and mooching off his rich acquaintance.

"Haha," his laugh is derisive and he heads towards the kitchen in his open-plan apartment space, soft, bouncy carpet cushioning his bare feet before transitioning into cold tile, socks and trainers left abandoned by the couch, regarding the lack of food with no surprise and getting a beer instead. "You got an opener for this?"

"Top drawer, get me one too," he does as he's told, uncapping both and not stooping to dig one lost cap out from under the washing machine where it's rolled. "Haven't seen you around for a bit, even went by your warehouse a couple times. Where you been staying?"

"Mizuki's. He said I could for a bit, something happened."  
"What?" There's no way he doesn't already know, he's an information broker after all, and a good one too, so he just tells him simply and takes a long swig of his beer. It's frothy and he's always hated the bitterness it leaves on his tongue.

"Brother died."  
"Huh. That's shitty."  
"Yeah, it is pretty shitty." But they clink bottles anyway and Noiz seems intelligent enough to not mention it again, accepting him into his home with remarkable nonchalance and ordering enough food for about six people when it begins to get late. The leftovers go into the fridge and it seems they'll be living on them for the considerable future, and really, the arrangement might just be perfect. There's food and drink on tap because Noiz is like a millionaire or something, hell, there's probably sex on tap too, though he's not entirely sure how he feels about going down that road.

Not again, at any rate.

* * *

It's at about the two week mark that Sly slowly begins to realise that he gets no pleasure in taunting people anymore, in going to Grime and having messy nights, in staggering back to his warehouse or Noiz's, whichever is closest, with blood on his nose and the beginnings of an awful hangover. It's quite a big issue considering that is all his life consists of, and there isn't really much else he can do other than stay at Noiz's constantly and never go outside. So he does that instead.

It's another couple weeks after that, that he starts to feel honestly weird, unsatisfied with everything and unable to concentrate, his chest feels heavy sometimes or tight with anger he doesn't have energy or desire to express. He sits and doesn't do anything but listen to the weird American game Noiz has been playing, some confusing shit about a photographer who can rewind time or some fuckery, something he doesn't care to watch or get invested in. He just lets the music wash over him where he's curled into himself on an expensive couch, and his eyelids feel heavy, and he thinks of his brother a lot and of Mizuki sometimes.

It's about this time that Noiz finally asks too, and he's surprised that it took this long, and at the ease with which he replies.

"If you were crashing at Mizuki's for so long, how come you're not at his still?"  
He exhales a huff of air, an amused scoff, tapping ash into the stupidly fancy tray before he responds with a shrug. It feels like the most he's moved in a while. "I fucked him off. I'm a free agent again."

"How come?"  
"Wasn't gunna work. Of course it wasn't. Better to end it now."

"I guess. Did you like him?" The question wasn't blunt like Noiz could be, but it wasn't soft either because heaven knows he wasn't good at that either, he just wanted to know, perhaps even needed to know.

"Yeah, I really liked him," he replies, and the crinkled, confused expression that earns makes him want to cry because fuck he'd really, really liked him, and he'd ruined everything.

* * *

Grief is a strange emotion. Most days Sly doesn't really feel much of it, or any at all, but there are seconds where it floods him and he has to swallow wetly to fight back the threatening wetness of his eyes. He tries not to let himself dwell on it, at least not when Noiz is around, but then sometimes he'll see something, or hear something, or smell something that reminds him of his brother, and his chest gets tight and he feels like he's going to burst with sadness.

He misses him often, stands in the shower feeling lonely and guilty for not spending more time with him when he could. He remembers how much he loved everyone around him, selflessly, unconditionally, remembered turning up at the house in the better days with a black eye and a bust lip and not receiving any judgement whatsoever.

Or turning up with bites on his neck and a turned up collar in a weak attempt to hide them, bites from Mizuki, though he ignores that for now because the memory of his twin in the hospital is far stronger, seeing the marks and teasing him about them in such a good-natured, calm way that Sly knew he cast no bad thoughts upon him.

It's hard, because his throat tightens and it's often very abrupt, coming from absolutely nowhere and he can't breathe for a second as his chest stutters and his eyes shimmer with wetness. It's hard to think of somebody so kind, so loving, being now gone, and harder still to think of his body in that box. It doesn't feel like a fitting enough end for somebody so utterly gentle, and selfless and considerate. He tries not to think about it, about how he'd felt seeing the funeral procession go off from his house, to not think of that plain pine box that had held the only person who has ever loved him so fully, so without condition.

Some days he lets the feeling take over for an hour or two, sits quietly on the couch while Noiz is out gathering intel or whatever he does, and lets the heavy feeling of loss, of sorrow, just overwhelm him until his eyes feel sore and puffy and his face is sticky with tears that fall down completely unbidden.

His Grandma had told him he might not be around for much longer, to say his goodbyes, so he'd gone to see him one last time, left the hospital room and said he'd see him later, knowing that probably wasn't true, but not wanting to make things so final with a solid word of farewell. An 'I love you,' had slipped out, tacked on like it was as natural as breathing, like it was something they always said to each other rather than being something silent but known by the both of them. He hadn't replied, so maybe he hadn't even heard, but knowing that he'd at least been able to say it makes the memory somehow more painful and more relieving at the same time. He's glad he said it, he'd regret it if he hadn't, but just remembering how much he really did love him, his only brother, his twin, makes the loss somehow even more raw.

"Noiz."  
"Mm?"  
"Come here," it was strange, to be somewhere completely different now, to be once again greeting somebody whose clothes he wore, who could walk about in his apartment feeling safe in just a t-shirt and some sweatpants he nearly stood on the hems of. But he was here, with Noiz now and the foreigner hadn't so much as mentioned that he was staying, had just let it happen and occasionally thrusted a take-out box of pasta or an Xbox controller his way. He knew something was wrong of course, he wasn't dense enough to believe Sly and Mizuki had gone their own ways with no animosity, and even he wasn't emotionally stunted enough to not know something was wrong.

He also wasn't the best person at supplying comfort, which somehow might make it easier for Sly to take what he needed. Noiz had a particularly lax grasp of personal space, and a tendency for unintentional skinship, something Sly couldn't bring himself to mind right now when he wanted closeness more than anything else, to drown out the incessantly annoying pounding of his heart.

So Noiz silently obeyed, sinking onto the couch with coil in hand, yawning as if none of this bothered him even as Sly shuffled close enough to rest his head on his shoulder, arms coming to encircle him because he needed something to hold onto.

"Wanna watch a movie?"  
"Sure."

He acted like none of this was weird, messing about on the device until the TV sparked neatly into life and title sequences appeared on the screen, none Sly cared much to read, jostling him as he tucked knees under his chin and an arm came to rest around his shoulder, bare skin blocked from his neck by the finest sheet of hair.

He's remarkably okay with it all, and when Sly sniffs he awkwardly pats his hair and doesn't mention it, doesn't ask whether he just has a cold or whether something is wrong, and Sly prefers it that way.

* * *

"What do you want?"

Sly pauses for entirely too long, way longer than he should have even after he noticed the take-out menu in Noiz's hand and realised that the question is not as broad or as deep as he'd initially mistaken it to be.

"Whatever." He answers quietly, his mind is elsewhere now.

He'd like to see the ocean from the shore, feel sand between his toes, he wants Ren to be there too, to tell him about the fish and the creatures in the rock pools. He wants a place of his own, nothing too impressive, a couple of rooms and maybe a balcony he can smoke on. A cat too, a friendly one who'll curl up in his lap and rub against his legs when he stands to cook actual food, food that maybe he even paid for himself. He wants carpet, and a bathtub, and clean bedding, and somewhere to put his shoes, ones that perhaps wouldn't be years old and full of holes. He wants to buy a bunch of flowers, put all but one on a gravestone under a mid-day sky and keep the other for himself. A bookshelf, not too full, with room for more if he deems anything interesting and readable enough.

It's a nice picture, a quiet life where he can keep to himself and not be bothered, where thinking wouldn't always be a bad thing, but it feels so far away when he comes back to reality with the usual, harsh thud of somebody speaking.

"We're getting pizza."

"Cool," he replies, but pizza really isn't what he wants.

* * *

"Are you living the dream?"

Noiz looks at him with the usual blank stare, eyes flickering over his expression to try and read him, shrugging as he turns back to the screen and his latest game, "nah, is anyone?"

Sly doesn't understand, it's a weirdly vague answer, as well as an unsatisfying one considering he spends every day thinking that Noiz really has it all. "You've got all this money, you can hack whatever you want, what other dream could you have?"

"You know I'm not from here, right?" He doesn't leave time to respond, but he's so obviously foreign that he doesn't need to wait, "maybe I wanna go home sometimes."

"That's the dream? Leaving here?" This at least, is understandable, Sly spends a lot of time in general, and a lot of time lately, staring at the line of the horizon where the island ends and the rest of the world begins, and wishes himself anywhere but where he is.

"One of 'em."

"How many are there?"

"A few," he leaves it at that, and both of them are fine to let the conversation die there. There's no need for either of them to share more, there is no intimacy here, they barely know each other and somehow that works out best for both of them, even if Sly does feel a little lonely sometimes as he stares at the blond head and wonders why he allows this.

* * *

He doesn't go out a lot, or at all, he hits up Grime a couple of times but the crowd there never gave him the respect he deserved anyway and with his long period of absence he blends into the collection of wall-leaners too easily.

A couple approach him, with alcohol breath and leering eyes, ask him if he wants a drink as if that is their real intention with him, and he considers it for about five seconds, but something isn't right about it now and he shakes his head and tells them to fuck off, waves them in someone else's direction. They take it remarkably well, and when he leaves about an hour later, nobody spares him a second glance.

He's beginning to enjoy being invisible, even as it suffocates him.

* * *

He especially, deliberately, stays out of Dry Juice territory, he doesn't want to see anybody he knows, or even somebody he doesn't who is marked with that stupid tattoo, that symbol of everything he is leaving behind.

It's difficult, though, to leave things behind when they've been keeping up with him so long, and even a run in with Virus and Trip isn't able to build the same rage in him it would once have.

"Sly-san," he beams like he's thrilled to see him and even Trip looks weirdly enthusiastic about this apparent chance encounter, offering a wave and ditching his cigarette to focus his full attention on him. "We haven't seen you since the funeral."

His breath stutters a little and he almost chokes on smoke, exhaling messily through his nose and straightening his back as if he isn't freaked out to know they're not only aware of his brother's death, but also had somehow seen him watching the first steps of his burial process. Had witnessed him watching secretly from the rafters of his Grandmother's house. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised, they seem to know everything.

"Didn't see you there."

"Naturally we remained inconspicuous. But we couldn't let our biggest fans twin be laid to rest without paying our respects."

"Generous of you," but all of them are smiling too thinly and Sly feels lightheaded when he decides he doesn't want to hear any more, when he concedes defeat to them and heads for the safe haven of Noiz's home.

He throws up when he gets there, and blames the force of it on the warmth trickling down his face as he hunches over cold porcelain feeling utterly, utterly alone.

* * *

Mizuki doesn't tell anybody what happened, there'd be no point, only Kin and Tio know about Sly in the first place, and he doesn't want to have to prove his best friend right and admit that things went south and that this was all a terrible idea to begin with.

He doesn't want to prove him right, even though it's more childish pride than anything else that keeps him from letting anyone know.

He doesn't want to admit that he'd naively thought maybe it might actually work. He supposes he's proven his own stupidity now.

The first week passes without comment nor any kind of ceremony, Mizuki's life is remarkably the same, there's no dramatic Sly shaped hole in his apartment, and Amaya is fine to curl up on his lap and provide company that isn't harsh and snapping. She doesn't seem to notice Sly's absence either, and takes to curling up on the empty sides of the bed at night, her soft breathing lulling Mizuki into a sleep that is surprisingly peaceful.

It's kinda nice, in all honesty, to have his space back, to be able to get home from a long day and just do whatever he wants and not have to deal with anyone else's shit, to be able to watch a movie without derogatory comments, to be able to listen to embarrassing music without being labelled a sap.

It's nice, for a while, being alone again. But he slowly starts to throw himself into work more without even noticing it, and he's pulling twelve hour shifts before he even realises that something has to be wrong. He's in his apartment to sleep, eat, shower and shit, and that's really it. He starts jogging again, with Tio or sometimes one of the others at his side, and they share casual, friendly conversation as they pound the streets of Midorijima at early morning light or the start of dusk just before the sun sinks down below the mountains.

He books too many appointments and he's still there, inking intently or talking through designs with customers long after their official closing hours, some nights finishing up right as the bar opens for the night and he's off his stool and serving people perched on their own.

His back aches and his eyes struggle to focus and he collapses into bed every night and sleeps like a baby until his alarm screams him awake and he's back to it all again. He starts accepting the occasional tattoo appointment on a Sunday which is the only day where neither the bar nor the studio opens, and really he thinks everything is fine until there's outside interference and somebody else has to let him know something's wrong.

"Hey, I'm clocking off for the day. Don't stay too late, alright?"

"Sure thing _mum_ , I'll go up after I finish this sketch."

Tio continues to watch him but Mizuki is too focused in his drawing to even notice the eyes boring a hole into his back, "I saw your diary, you've got somebody coming in at five, and another at seven for a three hour session."

"Mm?"

"You were here at nine, Mizuki, you didn't even go home for lunch."

"I brought a sandwich."

"That's still in the fridge. Have you even been drinking?"

"Yeah, got a bottle on the side over there," the bottle he gestures to is a metal flask, so Tio can't tell if any of its contents have been drunk, what the contents are, or if it's been refilled during the day, but considering he hasn't noticed Mizuki going to the bathroom either, he guesses that's a lie too.

"Hm," he doesn't respond other than a quiet, contemplative hum, and Mizuki presumably expects him to leave, maybe he thinks he's already gone considering how little attention he's paying him. But he's concerned so he steps into the room properly, no longer lingering on the threshold and putting a hand on Mizuki's shoulder so he'll finally look up at him, hand squeezing as he narrows his eyes at him.

He looks okay, he doesn't seem exhausted or stressed or run down, sure, his hair is a little messier than usual and could maybe do with a trim, but other than that he seems to be alright in himself, and one missed lunch isn't that big a deal. "You've been working a lot lately, is everything okay? With you? Sly?"

"Yeah man, everything's great, just got a lot of inspiration, y'know?" He nods, because he does know, he can't count on both hands the amount of times inspiration had suddenly hit Mizuki and he'd been doodling onto serviettes or whatever paper he could lay his hands on. But that's the problem, because Mizuki is _always_ inspired, but never to the extent where he does nothing but work, in fact usually his inspiration makes him less eager to work until he's gotten his idea down and then can go back to projects he's less passionate about.

"Yeah, I get that. Don't burn yourself out though, we need you here," Mizuki seems pleased at that, lightly patting the hand on his shoulder in appreciation and smiling up at him, seemingly feeling reassured by the genuine concern he's being shown.

"I know, don't worry, I'll have a big tea, alright? And tomorrow I won't bartend so I can get an early night instead."

"Alright, I guess that'll do," he's joking, but he realises his earlier question hadn't really been answered, in fact Mizuki's response, while suitably distracting, had been a little hedging too. "So, everything okay with Sly? You guys didn't fight or anything?"

"Nah, he moved out a few days back, wasn't working for him," he's back to his design and Tio's hand is back in it's pocket again, so Mizuki doesn't see his eyebrows furrow and him frown at how calmly he's spoken.

"Oh. So, what, you guys are just, over?"

"Mm-hm, it was a mutual thing. It wasn't going to work out, I mean seriously, _Sly Blue_? Man, what was I thinking?" He laughs and Tio lightly exhales along, a puff of humour escaping his nose but nothing more than that because he can feel sick unease building in his gut.

"You're okay about it?"

"Yeah, no point being upset about it, it was bound to happen. Besides, now I can do what I like doing without having to look after him all the time."

But you _liked_ looking after him, Tio thinks and doesn't say, you _love_ having people to look after and who needed looking after more than Sly?

"Yeah that's true, must be a relief, huh?"

"Oh you have _no_ idea," he laughs and Tio wants to say that no, he doesn't. But he puts his hand back on Mizuki's shoulder instead.

"You know I'm always here if you wanna talk, right?"

"I know dude," he smiles again, and this is more genuine, slipping an arm around his waist to pull him into a messy kind of hug, and Tio knows if he wasn't sitting he would absolutely have ruffled his hair to lessen the comfort of the moment, the intimacy. "You'll be my first port of call."

"Good, don't strain your eyes, alright? I'll see you in the morning."

"Yeah, yeah, see you tomorrow."

"You alright?"

"Yeah, um, yeah I think so."  
"Did something happen?" His question is too specific and Tio wonders again just what happened to make him so wary of Mizuki, so weirdly aware of him at all times, like he considers him a threat.

"No. But, what do you know about him and Sly, you haven't heard anything lately, have you?"

"They were arguing a couple of weeks ago, sounded pretty serious, but they argue all the time, so I dunno. Why?"

"They broke up."

"Oh." He obviously isn't expecting that, and his tone of questioning is far too casual, Tio knows it's fake. "Why's that?"

"He didn't say." They walk along in silence for a little while, but then the skirting around the issue that Kin knows _something_ is beginning to drive him mad and he throws everything to the wind and asks. "You know something about it, don't you? You heard something."

"What do you mean?"

"When you heard them arguing, you heard something that's making you be weird with Mizuki."

He laughs a little, "I don-"

"No, no, don't say you don't know what I'm on about, or that you and Mizuki are just peachy, you heard _something_. You're watching Mizuki like a hawk, like he's going to swoop down and… I don't know, carry me off or something."

"It's not like that."  
"Then what is it like? You've been being so possessive whenever he's around, something has to be wrong."  
"I'm not possessive."

"You don't think standing right next to me and touching me every five seconds is possessive?"

"Tio, you're blowing this way out of proportion."

"Tell me what you heard."

They're actually arguing now, and as usual, it's because of somebody else, first it was Kurosawa, and now it's Mizuki, Tio is beginning to wonder if they're both just inherently jealous people.

"No."

"So you admit you heard something?"

"I'm not admitting anything, Tio, why are you interrogating me?"

Okay, scratch that, Tio is arguing, and Kin is trying to do anything but.

"Just tell me, what you heard. Please, Kin?"

"Sly said-" It's obvious he doesn't want to say it, and they've stopped in the middle of an empty street to have a disagreement. He sighs and he actually looks pretty pissed off as he grinds his jaw and finally speaks, "Sly said something about you and Mizuki."

"Wow, that's real specific, thanks, Kin, super helpful."

"God, fine, I'll fucking tell you then since you can never just leave anything be," Tio thinks he's offended by that, though he's not sure what it means, he recognises it as a personal attack. "Sly said he knows Mizuki thinks about you when they fuck."

He's stunned into silence, and that doesn't happen a lot, so he opens his mouth and all that spills out is a surprised little, "oh."

"Are you happy now? I wasn't going to tell you, because you know, maybe it's not true but they broke up over it so maybe it is. Are you content, now you've fucking dragged it out of me? Do you feel better now that you've got your way, like you always do?"

"I'm sorry, I always get my way?"

"You don't like my ex, and suddenly he's gone. You don't think that's you getting your way?"  
"You said he was a mistake, you told me that yourself, don't put your stupid decisions on me, alright?"

"You string me along like a puppet on a fucking… String! Everything's always at your pace, what you want. Maybe for once I wanted to be the one with some level of control."

"This is your control? Hiding something like that from me? I'm tempted to fuck him just to spite you." That's not even true, but his mouth blurts the first thing his brain thinks of, the thing he knows will hurt him most and he knows he loses his filter so fast when he gets angry, he's so indignant and furious right now that he barely even registers what he's saying.  
"Go ahead, I don't give a fuck, I'm so done with you, _nothing_ I do is good enough for you. So fine, if Mizuki's what you actually want then go the fuck ahead. Hell, call me and let me know how good it was, we both know that I could never compare."

"Don't be so self-pitying."  
"Hard when you spend all your time pitying me. I'm going back to my shitty apartment to watch my shitty TV and eat cheap ramen noodles without you _judging_ me, you can walk yourself home."

* * *

"I'm sorry." He starts the call with that, and his voice is so small he's surprised Kin has even heard him, but he hears a sigh and the shuffling of papers, and carries on. "I shouldn't have said any of that."

"No, you shouldn't," his voice is hard and for a second Tio's breath catches and he realises he absolutely isn't going to be forgiven for this any time soon. He hears a swallow and what might be a groan of irritation, and braces himself for whatever there is to come, certain he won't survive it with all his feelings intact. "But neither should I. Shit, I'm sorry, Tio. I should have just told you."

"I know why you didn't. But, I mean, I get it now. Why you've been like that around Mizuki." Silence falls on both sides of the line and it's not a comfortable one, Kin feels embarrassed at having acted so protectively, and Tio isn't sure if he's flattered or offended by the implications. "You know you don't have anything to worry about, right? We're just friends."

He sighs again, and every time he does that Tio winces, waiting for things to blow up in his face and pretty sure he'll deserve everything he gets, "I know. I know that. It's not that I don't trust you."

Something in Tio rears an ugly head and he wants to remark that it sure seemed that way when he watched him like a hawk for days on end every time Mizuki so much as shared the same oxygen. "I don't trust _Mizuki._ I know he's your friend and he wouldn't do anything to mess that up, but I don't know him that well. And besides, Sly's…"

"Sly's what?" He doesn't know where Kin was going with that, but he knows not to trust a single thing Mizuki's ex (if he can be counted as that), says, "he's a liar, a stirrer, Kin. He would have said anything in an argument to get the reaction he wanted, even ridiculous stuff like that."

"Yeah, you're right," he concedes and forces a smile Tio can't even see, but he doesn't agree nor believe what he's saying, there's definitely some truth in Sly's words, well timed though they may have been. He trusts Mizuki as far as he can throw him, and he's really been slacking at the gym lately.

But still, him and Tio have made up and that is good at least, Tio is smart enough not to mention any of the nasty things he'd accused him of, and in return Kin decides to drop his own grudge about the while situation, and things are largely fine again.

* * *

Or they are, until Tio decides its due time he goes to see his mother and sister, to ask the prior some awkward questions about things they've all left buried deep in their pasts.

His mother purses her lips when he says why he's really there and his sister is suddenly withdrawn as she excuses herself to her room with the excuse of having a project to finish even though it's the summer holidays and he's pretty sure she's not the type to study more than she needs to. She might even have graduated already, he doesn't really keep in touch with them as much as he should and the reasons become obvious as his mother relents and pulls down an old, dust covered photo album from the top of a kitchen cabinet.

"Why are you suddenly so interested?"  
"I dunno, I grew up, I guess. I'm old enough to know now, I think, about what happened."

"Mm," she nods, and her face softens a little bit as she supposes he has every right to know, fully aware that this talk is long overdue and that one day she imagines herself and her daughter sitting down for the very same talk. "Well, I guess I should start from the beginning."

"Yeah, that's what I want to know. I think, what changed."

"Alright, drink your tea, and I'll tell you what I can."

"Thank you."

He's there for almost two hours, his sister remains a ghost until he leaves but her room has been so silent he thinks she might have been eavesdropping, he's not sure he'd blame her, this runs deep for all of them, even if she was too young to remember a lot of it.

He smiles and hugs his mum in thanks, and pretends he was just curious for the sake of it, but he leaves and he's felt steadily sicker and sicker as she'd explained what had happened, just when things had gone wrong. It's a pattern he can see in himself, he shares features with another in the album under his arm and he'd never noticed before just how like him he looks.

He covers up the mirror in his bathroom, and repeats his mantra to himself, and he's so filled with conflict that he feels like he's tearing in two.

One thing he knows though, is that he has to talk to Kin. After all, he deserves better.

* * *

"Kin, we talked about this."

He pauses, frowning down at the cocktail he's mixing and feeling like he's just been scolded by his mother, a thought he doesn't really appreciate since she isn't in a fit state to scold anyone these days. Not certain what he's done wrong, he regards his workstation and supposes it _is_ a bit of a mess, there are a few bottles without tops and he hasn't been cleaning up as he goes along, mint leaves crumpled behind a scattering of salt from a mojito drunk over an hour ago now.

"Being tidy?"

Tio laughs and it should be reassuring but if it isn't his messiness he's referencing then really Kin isn't sure what he's talking about, and that could spell trouble, "no, but you still need to work on that. I meant the Mizuki thing."

"Oh. You mean the whole, me being protective thing?" He feels embarrassed saying it and he can feel the tips of his ears getting hot, with the house lights up now their shift is over and they just linger to clean and enjoy a free drink of their choice, perks of the job, Tio can probably see them glowing red under his hair.

"Mm-hm," Tio clearly feels uncomfortable too, sighing and stepping closer to put a hand on his arm, resting right between where his shirt sleeve ends and his skin begins, warm against his flesh and enough of a distraction that he forgets his childish mortification for a minute and just focuses on Tio's thumb leaving goose bumps in its wake. "He's not going to steal me from you."

"You're not really mine to steal," he doesn't mean it as a jab, he even smiles as he says it, and honestly that is half of the problem here, that there would be no stealing involved, no cheating, no tangible reason why Mizuki shouldn't get back with Tio if that's what they both want. But as Tio's thumb stops rubbing circles into his bicep he realises how it sounds, even with his tone of voice being perfectly reasonable and almost dismissing of Tio's statement, trying to placate things, it sounds bad.

Tio isn't looking at him now and his expression is drawn, regarding the floor blankly and lips downturned at the corner in what could be a frown or anger, Kin can't really tell which.

"Not- I didn't mean it like that."

"Then how did you mean it? I know I string you along, okay? I didn't need you to tell me because I already knew," he sighs and the initial snap of his voice has faded and it is small and quiet and guilty. He's still touching him. "I've just- I've got some shit to deal with, just- To work through, I guess. I didn't want to drag you into it but you just turned up and suddenly I'm remembering all this stuff and all these reasons why it won't work and it _can't work_ and it's just- It's-"

Kin isn't sure how he'd describe the change in Tio, but his hand grows tighter around his arm, words getting faster, more frantic, like he's panicking and blurting stuff but Kin can't see any reason to panic. It's like he's trying to convince himself of his words more than anyone else, like he's got this weird, ingrained idea and he's repeating it until he believes it again.

Kin doesn't know what's going on, but he can see when somebody is in need of comfort, when somebody is working themselves into a state and needs to be stopped, when he needs him to be quiet and stop talking because these words don't seem entirely voluntary and Tio is sure to forget them.

"Tio," he doesn't look up at him even as he calls his name and he looks suddenly so distressed that he pulls his arm away and back into himself and he's still muttering under his breath that it won't _work_ and it'll never _work_ and his words are vehement. "Hey, hey. Relax, okay?"

Kin has to basically shake him to get any sense out of him and he snaps back into reality with shaking fingers and eyes darting around as if expecting to see the ghost of somebody long since removed from his existence.

"You okay?"

"Mm, sorry, I sorta went off on one there, huh? I-" He pauses to swallow and gather himself, "I got a lot on my mind."

"That's cool," he shakes his head to assuage Tio that all is well, hands moving to rest on his shoulders and feeling so much tension there he's honestly surprised because Tio is striking him increasingly as being neurotic and he'd always seemed pretty chilled out before. "Deal with your shit, okay? I'm here if you ever need help with it."

"Thanks."

"No problem," it's his turn to sigh now because he doesn't know what's going on and he's trying his best to work out the issue with only half-truths and accidental slips of the tongue to guide him in the right direction. He's walking blind. "The shit you've got going on, does the way I am around you with Mizuki make it worse?"

He purses his lips to consider this, there's something frightened in his eyes and Kin definitely doesn't like it that the look is turned his way, that he might be causing it somehow, "yes and no. It's really complicated. I'll tell you some day, promise."

"Okay," Tio has sagged under his palms and he looks tired, Kin is about to suggest they drink their cocktails, do a quick clean up and head to their respective homes, but Tio raises his voice first and there's a weird undertone to it that he can't quite place.

"You don't remind me of anyone."

Is that good? He really doesn't know if that's good, it doesn't _sound_ good, but then Kin has to admit that right now he has no idea what's going through Tio's head because they're having a conversation about a secret only one of them is party to.

He's debating what the fuck he's meant to read from that and feeling baffled and possibly a little insulted, but it seems that is pre-emptive and unnecessary because instead of explaining Tio kisses him and he guesses he can't have meant it badly.

He's cupping his face protectively and his mouth is soft and slow and _fuck,_ Kin wants to know everything about him, all his secrets and insecurities and thoughts, wants to know what it is that makes him hold back. They're dating, he tells himself as Tio cradles his face in his hands and he easily spans the width of his hips to nestle Tio closer, palms snug on the small of his back.

They're dating, he tells himself as Tio scratches at the hair on the nape of his neck and smiles against his mouth and sucks on his bottom lip.

They're _dating_ , he tells himself later, as he lies in bed staring up at his ceiling and unable to sleep.

They're dating, he reminds himself, but really, it doesn't feel that way at all.

They're in love, he considers, and that seems far more accurate.


	2. Chapter 2

Things change, for everyone all at once.

Sly, unbelievably wasted, ends up in Noiz's bed for more than sleep once more and spends the next day lying in dirty sheets and wondering what went wrong, what happened.

Mizuki, drunk on exhaustion and overworking, decides to turn 180 and become a recluse instead and he doesn't leave his apartment for an entire week despite Tio's concern and his commitments.

Kin, focusing on trying to be what Tio needs, is forced to admit that maybe the whole being in love thing only goes one way despite the fact that he's at Tio's place more than his own and that he's slept there three nights that past week.

But Tio is the one really going crazy, in secret when nobody is there, he's pulling out old photo albums and poring over them in the dark when he should be asleep or inviting Kin over because his apartment is becoming suffocating. He, like Sly, is trying to work out what went so horribly wrong, what made him so messed up and why he just keeps on making mistakes, why he can't commit and who's fault that is, because God knows he'd never blame himself.

* * *

"Are you ever gunna get up?"

"No."

"I got pizza."

"Don't care," he can see Noiz's crotch, it's basically at his eye level since the German hasn't bothered to kneel so they're on an equal footing, he remains snugly bundled up in his duvet and stares blankly at his sweatpant covered legs until he sighs and leaves the room.

* * *

"You coming back to work any time soon? People are getting annoyed that you're not taking bookings."

"Not my problem."  
"It sort of is, you're the tattooist, that's your _job,_ Mizuki. You already cancelled a bunch of bookings without rescheduling them, people are gunna start going elsewhere if you're not careful."

"Fine by me."

Tio sighs, well it's more of a frustrated groan if he's honest, but he deems the conversation pointless and abandons it there, Mizuki staring blankly at the space where he'd been stood.

* * *

"What are you looking at?"

The album slams shut so rapidly that Kin actually flinches, and with that alone he understands that he's not getting an answer as to the contents of the bulky folder he rapidly slides under the couch, photographs within concealed and presumably staying that way.

"Nothing, how'd you sleep?"

"Good," he answers too slowly, but Tio is beaming now and the slight falter of his mouth is the only sign that it is fake, that something is wrong, that Kin had felt him climb out of bed at 3am and that he hadn't come back. Kin wants to know what's in the album, wants to know why he's always here, at Tio's place, in Tio's bed, using his shower and eating his food.

They are just dating, and really none of this feels right and even when Tio kisses him goodnight before they go to sleep and nestles into his body, he can feel cold unease in his gut and he holds him tighter because he knows something is wrong and this won't last.

There's too much unspoken between them, too many secrets and no relationship built on deception will last. It's barely a relationship to begin with.

* * *

'Last guy just got discharged!' It's a good text to receive, it means Beni-Shigure is back on the road to health, it means that everyone except Koujaku is now back to normal life, has recovered from whatever happened to them. He doesn't feel very happy for them though.

'That's great.'

It barely constitutes a response, but he supposes it _is_ great and anyway, he has a bar to run and tattoos to do and he is really, very busy.

He yawns and rolls over and wonders if it's too early in the day to take a nap. Considering he woke up two hours ago, it definitely is, but he takes one anyway.

* * *

He's fucking Noiz most days now, though he's not really sure why and he knows it isn't really what he should be doing, what he wants to be doing, but he hasn't figured out what that is yet and it fills up the time nicely.

* * *

Mizuki finally gets bored enough to accept company, and Tio dumps himself onto the couch without ceremony or much of a greeting other than, "Hey, what you been up to?" He knows better than to berate him for his absence in everyday life, in his own way he is dealing with a breakup and the least Tio can do is try to be understanding even as all the bartenders' actions serve to make him more and more frustrated.

"Not much, being miserable and debating why all my life choices are terrible, you?"

"Hm, same really."

Mizuki stays quiet for a minute longer, contemplating this before he speaks, "Kin?"

"Kin," he agrees, and they lapse into more silence, Mizuki shoving a beer in his general direction and taking a drink of his own, contemplating.

"Not working out?"

"Not really. Kinda like you and Sly, doomed from the start."

"Ah," he nods like he understands, but he doesn't really because Tio and Kin have always seemed perfect for each other, but he supposes he doesn't know any of the details or what goes on between them when there aren't other eyes to see. "What are you gunna do about it?"

"Dunno."

"Least you're getting laid."

He snorts, and Mizuki finally glances over at him with an eyebrow raised, "nah, I wish."

"Hm, makes two of us then. Miserable, single, or soon to be, and distinctly un-laid."

"Yeah."

"You don't wanna fuck him at least once before things go to shit or whatever?"

"Nah," his lips wrap around the mouth of the beer and Mizuki watches his throat bob as he swallows. "It'd make everything more complicated."

"I guess."

* * *

Tio has been increasingly thinking of ways to sabotage things, it seems like the simplest way to get himself out of a situation that will inevitably end badly. The problem is that every time he comes up with something he can see the pain in Kin's eyes and he backs out, every time he considers saying, 'let's just be friends,' he can hear the confusion and hurt in Kin's voice and it makes his chest so tight that he just stays silent instead.

It will take something drastic to create the kind of distance he needs to get his head sorted, but even then he wonders if the distance will be something he wants, or if he's going to push Kin away only to realise he's done something incredibly stupid and immediately regret it.

Something in his head is becoming increasingly erratic and paranoid, and he can feel himself unwinding every day as the tension in his shoulders builds and only escapes late at night when he's alone and can have some time to just freak the fuck out.

He's headed for a breakdown, he's fairly sure of that, he's acting weird and people at work have started to notice, he's obsessive and nit-picking and not as laid back as he tries to be, he's pulled Kin stupidly close and still his mind tells him to shove him so far away he can never reach for him again.

If he was more self-aware, he'd realise he was anxious, horrifically so, that the tension he always feels, hot and present in his chest, isn't anger but fear, sheer terror of nothing and yet everything at once. That when he wakes up at 3am unable to breathe it is not because of a nightmare he cannot recall, but because he's putting himself under so much strain that his body is starting to malfunction as much as his brain. He'd realise too, that the strange periods of calm he gets are just moments where he pretends everything is okay, that he isn't unhappy and scared and so worried about hurting someone else that he's inadvertently destroying himself.

But things come to a head and he wakes up at 2:49am, covered in cold sweat and unable to breathe, clutching at his chest and gasping to fill his greedy lungs. This is because of Kin, he decides, because of the pressure the other is putting on him, this, he decides, will go away as soon as he moves away from Kin and gets back to himself.

He doesn't realise that the problem is there to stay regardless of who is or isn't in his life, that this is something he's always dealt with but never felt this strongly before, he doesn't realise that the photo album under his couch makes his chest tighter.

He blames Kin for the panic attack, even though he is not there and he has done nothing to cause it other than exist, even though all he can think of as he chokes on his own saliva and his eyes burn with tears, is that he won't let himself get to a stage where he can hurt him.

* * *

He feels like he hasn't slept in days, his chest hurts constantly and no amount of indigestion and heartburn remedies are helping, he twines his fingers constantly, or nibbles at his nails until he reaches skin and his fingertips bleed. He can feel heavy pressure on his chest all the time and he just can't stand it anymore, he just wants to feel normal again, to feel light and calm and relaxed, to let this tension fade into the aether it came from and never return.

He knows what he has to do, or what he thinks he has to do anyway, and he's had plenty of sleepless nights to think it over, so much so that the words come out with remarkable ease.

"This isn't going to work."

"The curry? It looks alright so far," he genuinely isn't being obtuse, he doesn't quite sense the tone of Tio's voice until he turns away from the gently bubbling pan to see him stood in the doorway of his thin kitchen. He looks a little sick and it's probably not just from all the spices in the air.

"Not the curry," he reaches around him to turn off the stove-top and then immediately retreats back to his place, trapping Kin in the kitchen as well as staying well out of his reach, for whatever reason his mind may have concocted. There are dark circles under his eyes and his hair is a mess of curls, splaying out across his forehead.

Kin thinks he looks a little bit beautiful, but his gaze pans down to his lips and they're stretched thin. He's nervous suddenly.

He sighs, and it's heavier than he intended it to be, shoulders falling a good few inches as he exhales hard through his nose, "why won't it work?" He sounds a little more pointed, a little less surprised than he'd expected, because Tio has been being weird for a while now and he sort of knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that something was really wrong.

"It just won't."

That is _not_ a satisfactory answer and Kin can feel himself boil with indignation that he isn't even being given a decent answer as to why things have suddenly gone south, when in his opinion they were doing great until a day or two ago. "That's not an answer. Why isn't this going to work?"

"Because it _isn't,_ can't you just accept that? We were never going to work out and that's all there is to it, okay?" For some reason, when he played this out in his head a million times, Kin didn't argue back, and now he can feel the anxiety in his chest bubbling up, but perhaps this time it is rage because he's always found it hard to tell the difference.

"No, no, Tio, it's not fucking okay! You owe me an explanation." He owes him a damn sight more than that, but now isn't the time and he feels weirdly like he's gone from happily cooking a meal for his quasi-boyfriend to fighting to save their relationship within minutes. He's got motion sickness yet he's standing still.

"Look, it's not yo-"

"Tio I swear to God, if you say 'it's not you it's me', I will get really, _really_ fucking pissed."

"It's not you," his jaw is hard and he's almost whispering, not flinching despite Kin's raised tone and the hackles rising on the back of his neck.

"It can't be me, _I_ haven't done anything wrong. So what is it, Tio? Is it something to do with those photo albums you're obsessing over?" This is below the belt, he's been carefully not mentioning them because he knows it's something he isn't allowed to know yet, something private, and he hadn't meant to intrude but it seems those musty albums are ruining his life and suddenly he hates them.

"They have _nothing_ to do with this."

He hisses like a snake and Kin scoffs, "yeah sure. So it's you then, you're the problem. So what exactly is wrong with you? What happened to make you so- So fucking closed off, so unwilling to try this?"

"Nothing happened to me!" He's furious now and Kin is entirely aware that it is his fault, he isn't sure he feels guilty though because Tio had no right to lead him on like this then suddenly announce that oh no, sorry, guess it's not happening after all. "It's none of your business what happened to me."

"So something did happen? Was it recent or when you were a kid, 'cause it must have been pretty damn bad to make you this fucked up as an adult."

He's being unspeakably horrible, he can barely believe how nasty he's being, but he's frustrated and confused and most of all he doesn't want Tio to dump him like this, to just suddenly announce that it's all over and leave him by himself again. Tio is one of the best things in his life and he'll be fucked if he lets him go this easily.

He is making the situation a lot worse though, and in the split second of silence after he speaks something in Tio's face changes and he's livid, eyes narrowed and mouth open in a snarl and his hands slam into his chest to ram his back into the oven.

A few good shoves during a heated argument aren't unusual, but Tio has either forgotten or doesn't care about the setting and his push was so incredibly aggressive that as Kin puts a hand back to support himself, he smacks it on the pan and red hot curry splashes over his forearm.

Things de-escalate in seconds, he swears aloud in pain and hisses as he grabs the nearest cloth to wipe the liquid off, burning even as it lingers on his flesh. His skin is bright red when he moves the tea-towel away and he's too focused on trying to work out how bad it is (pretty bad by most people's scales, not the worst burn if he uses his own scale), to notice how pale Tio is, how his hands are shaking.

"You need to go."

He might be injured now and in significant pain, almost waiting for his arm to blister as he watches it, but he's still furious too, even more so now that Tio has caused him physical injury, "you're gunna scar me for life then tell me to fuck off? You're a real piece of-"

He doesn't finish his sentence, and it might be for the best because it wouldn't have ended very pleasantly, but he looks up, glaring at him, and all his spiteful words trickle away at his expression. He's heard the phrase, 'white as a ghost', lots of times before, but he's never understood it til now, all the colour has drained from Tio's face and he's staring at the growing red mark on his arm like it's some horrible creature from his nightmares.

"You need to go, Kin, please," he swallows hard, he looks like he's going to pass out. "Please just go."

He debates internally for all of four seconds, whether to stay and work out what the fuck is wrong with Tio, why he's suddenly trembling like a leaf, or whether to actually listen to him.

Turns out he's still angry enough to not care for the others wellbeing, "fine, if you need me I'll be at the fucking hospital."

* * *

It's definitely the worst panic attack so far.

He can't breathe, and he's been feeling like that a lot lately but this time he genuinely thinks he's dying, on his kitchen floor and unable to see through the burning tears in his eyes, dripping down his neck and onto his shirt. His vision has gone all fuzzy and there is a shrill ringing in his ears like noisy static from an old TV set, his heart is beating a hundred miles an hour and he can feel it getting faster and faster and more erratic. Kin's yell of pain plays on a horrific loop in his head and it gets louder and more distorted each time but he still recognises it for what it is, _his fault, his fault, his fault._

He thinks he's going to vomit but his throat is so thick that nothing can come up, bile burning the back of his palate and making him cough saliva all over his chin, blubbering like an infant and fighting for every breath like he's drowning.

He's always heard that drowning was a very peaceful way of dying, that after a while your lungs flood and you drift away gently into unconsciousness.

But there is nothing gentle about this and he doesn't know how long it is until his trachea widens and his chest begins to fill with oxygen again. It makes his head spin, the thickness of the air he gulps in, and though his body might feel like it's back to normal, his head whirls uncontrollably as he drags himself to bed because he can't stand the idea of anything but sleeping right now.

* * *

The next couple of days are not good, Tio feels crushed all the time, his chest still doesn't feel right and he finds himself having to take large, gulping breaths every now and again just to ensure he's getting enough air. He's light headed and dizzy and has a constant, throbbing pain that starts behind his eyes and gives him jaw ache. He stares at his coil, drafting and deleting messages.

'I'm sorry.'

'I didn't mean to hurt you.'

'It was an accident.'

'I didn't mean to hurt you.'

'I didn't mean to hurt you.'

'I didn't mean to hurt you.'

But how can he convince Kin of that when he can't convince himself?

* * *

"Holy shit, Kin, what you do to your arm?"

He's expecting people to ask him about it, it's pretty obvious and he doesn't feel like wearing long sleeves to hide it, but what he doesn't expect is how easily he lies about it when honestly, he almost wants to tell the truth to spite Tio. "Oh, I just burnt it, it's not a big deal."

"It must have been a pretty bad burn to need a bandage that big, how'd you do it?"

"I was carrying a pan of curry and slipped, some of it spilt on my arm."

Mizuki buys that so easily it's almost offensive, or it would be if Kin didn't already know how ridiculously, almost comically clumsy he is, "you're a danger to yourself, seriously. You gunna be okay to work? Doesn't it hurt?"

"It's not that bad, I swear, I'll be fine."

"Alright, if you're sure. Let me know if you ever want a night off though, alright? You've been working a lot since Hideaki quit."

"I like working."

"That's what I like to hear," Mizuki slaps him on the shoulder, and despite the suspicions Kin still has about him, he has to admit that at times like this he seems like nothing but a good guy. Just a pity he knows otherwise, really.

He senses his presence before he sees him, and there's something in the air that lets him know it's not just Mizuki returned from the stock room with more bottles of pineapple juice, it's like he knows Tio so well he can inherently know when he's entered a room. It's a bit weird, to be honest. He also knows he hasn't heard from him since the fight and even as he hears tentative footsteps approach and tells himself they can't really discuss this properly at work, he feels anger and the unfairness of this all build in his throat.

He initiates the conversation by reaching for his arm, slowly, like he expects to be shoved off any second. Kin is man enough to admit that the idea is tempting, but he lets Tio's fingers come to slowly flitter across the bandage anyway and just inhales through his nose instead of lashing out. "How bad is it?"

"Second degree." He'd lied to Mizuki about it, made it sound like it was just a minor injury that would be healed in a couple of days, when in reality he's had to shell out for painkillers and a hospital prescription for antibiotic cream to try and make sure it doesn't get infected. But it was Tio that caused it, unintentionally or not, and he supposes he deserves to know, or he's still angry enough to hope the severity of it keeps Tio bathed in guilt for long after it heals.

He swallows and it's really loud, the quiet of the bar doesn't help and Kin really wishes Mizuki had turned on the sound system before he disappeared, this feels stagnant and Tio is too pale. "That's my fault. I did that."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"Just for hurting me?"

"No," he doesn't wait to answer this time, but he doesn't shake his head or take his hand off the bandage, Kin can feel his heat through the fabric and it's a little uncomfortable given how tender and sore the skin is underneath. "I've- I've had a lot on my mind and I guess I just, let it take me over and- I just panicked and snapped."

He pauses to swallow and his face is still turned down into the smallest of frowns, he blinks too fast and when he finishes that thought his voice is thick, a little shaky, "and hurt you."

"Yeah, you did."

"It's just- Family stuff, I didn't. I didn't realise it would bother me this much. I shouldn't have taken it out on you. You didn't deserve any of it." He's actually whispering now, low and under his breath but Kin can still hear even as he's not sure he's meant to.

"Family stuff?" He's still angry, and in both physical and emotional pain, but just that phrase, 'family stuff', is one that he gets, one that builds up sympathy within him and he's gentler when he enquires. "Your mum okay? And your… Sister?"

He shakes his head dismissively, he seems surprised Kin even remembered he has a sister considering he never really speaks about her, "they're okay. It's um, like you said, something from when I was little. Guess it messed me up a bit."

"Hm, I get that." And he does, he really does, he understands more than most the long-term damage a person's family can do to them, whether it's intended or not, and he gets being an adult and it all returning from the past to overwhelm you.

"I know you do. But it's not an excuse," Tio still isn't looking him in the eye, staring at the white that wraps around his forearm neatly, his thumb trailing up and down the material so gently that Kin almost can't feel it. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I know you didn't."

"I didn't mean what I said either." Kin isn't sure he believes this, but he stays quiet and lets Tio say what he needs to, taking time to form the words this time, thinking over how what he says will be taken, the intonation and pattern of his words. Pausing to get the right syntax and structure, thinking over all the vowels and the verbs and the emphasis he puts on them. "Commitment, scares me, a bit. It's been fine in the past, because I've never met anybody I wanted to be committed with. Just, having somebody that close just makes me feel sick."

"Do you think I'd hurt you?"

"Maybe, or that I'd hurt you. It- I don't know if it's worth it."

"That's the risk you take, with any relationship. There's always a chance things will go wrong and somebody will end up hurt because of it, you just need to work out if it's worth the risk, if you think it might be worth it."

"Yeah, but I shouldn't have to do that. I feel like I should be sure."

"Well, it would be nice if you were, but that's obviously not how you work. You- You don't like taking chances, and that's okay, not everyone can just rush into things without thinking about the future. Some people have to be more, logical. You're one of those people."

"I suppose so."

"You're allowed to be uncertain, you're allowed to have doubts, there's nothing wrong with that. That's why we said we'd take it slow, because you weren't sure and I didn't want to rush you into something you might not really want."

"Yeah," his words are all dried up, he just stands there, feeling empty of more than just words, thinking back to the talk with his mother and the look on his sisters face, the photographs in the album and the person he's grown into, the people he's worked so hard to distance himself from.

"I don't know what's going on with you, and I guess I don't really need to. But if you keep thinking it won't work, chances are it won't." He feels like his words are washing right over Tio, he's still staring at the bandage and Kin can almost hear him thinking, so he gives up on speaking and reaches out to remove his hand and wraps him into a hug instead. Tio feels so small, so fragile where his head bumps just below his collarbones. This was supposed to be comforting, but Kin feels strangely melancholic with Tio in his arms like this, with so much sadness overwhelming the both of them, and he finds it's easy to start speaking again. "If you ever want to talk, I'm right here, okay?"

"I know," he replies, and it doesn't sound like a lot, but it means a lot.

* * *

It takes three weeks to convince himself that Kin is right, that he needs to talk to somebody about this. His sister isn't an option, and neither is his mother, they are both too involved and he doesn't want to cause them any more pain, not if he can help it. Mizuki is no good either, him and Tio are too close to have this kind of deep chat, it would make them uncomfortable. He needs somebody else, somebody he trusts but who isn't super close too, he needs a basic outsider to spill his deepest secrets too, so he writes a text and sends it the second his fingers are done typing, and isn't sure if he feels worse or better when he gets an immediate reply in the affirmative.

'Sure thing dude, come over whenever.'

"I've never told anyone this before."

"Your secrets are safe with me," he winks and it's obvious he's joking, not taking this seriously, it's probably meant to make Tio feel comfortable, but this is serious and Yuu is perceptive enough to realise this and change his tone immediately. "Take your time, I'll listen."

So he does, and for the next half hour Yuu is uncharacteristically quiet while Tio finally tells everything to somebody who is honestly a strange choice, he offers reassurance when he needs it, and urges him to take a break whenever his words start spilling too fast and high pitched panic enters his voice. He doesn't say much of anything else, other than to tell him it's okay, to take a break for a minute, he doesn't say anything at all, and for some reason Tio likes that. He isn't sympathetic, or judgemental, or overly on his side, he just sits quietly, offering silent comfort and listening to every word he says, even when they're all jumbled on top of each other and don't make sense.

Then finally Tio is done, out of words that hold any meaning and shrugging as he stares at his nervously twining fingers, eyes focused on the repetitive movement of fingernail across fingernail in his lap.

"You're not scared of him."

"No."

"And you're not scared of Kin."

"No," his breath exhales in a weak approximation of a laugh, because of all the things Kin makes him feel, real, genuine heart-stopping fear has never been one of them, he's never once looked at Kin and seen a threat and he doubts he ever will.

"There's this thing called a self-fulfilling prophecy, Kouhaku told me about it, he's smarter than me. It's literally been proved, that if you think about yourself a certain way, or think that you'll fail at something, that you're more likely to than if you were to think positively about it."

"Are you saying that's what I am? A self-fulfilling prophecy?"

"Of course I'm not, I'm saying that if you spend your whole life afraid that you'll become something you don't want to, you're more likely to become that exact thing. If you think you'll hurt Kin, chances are that, intentionally or not, you'll end up hurting him. Because you're pressuring yourself so much to be perfect, that you're bound to explode and do something you didn't want to do."

"I already did that," Yuu raises an eyebrow, curious but not judgemental, and Tio exhales a heavy breath where the anxiety in his chest feels thick and choking. "I pushed him, and he burnt his arm."

"Oh. I was going to ask you about that actually. He seems to be injured a lot, I thought maybe… He'd been doing it to himself." Tio looks stunned, that hadn't even entered his mind, that perhaps people looked at Kin and saw somebody who was sick like that. "He's a nice guy, but he doesn't seem to take the best care of himself, I know it's a bit of a dark place to jump, but… I jumped."

"He doesn't take care of himself?"

"Well, not in a mean way. Like he obviously doesn't sleep enough, and he works himself half to death, he's a people pleaser. Perfectionists like that tend to take things out on themselves, and he turns up to work looking like a mess in crumpled clothes and with his arm all bandaged. Guess I assumed the worst."

"It's still pretty bad."

"Did you push him hoping he'd get burned? Was that your intention?"

"Of course not. I just wanted him to shut up."

"Exactly, it was an _accident_. They happen all the time, like when I thought it would be funny to put oil on the kitchen floor and yell Kouhaku, and he broke his wrist when he fell over. Like when you knocked Mizuki unconscious with a vodka bottle. They're all accidents, you didn't push him maliciously, I don't think you'd ever mean to hurt anybody, but you're trying so hard not to, building up all this pressure inside, so when you snap there's more to let out. You know?"

"So, I just need to relax?"

"You need to be easier on yourself, you're just a human, like the rest of us, you mess up and make mistakes but you need to… To get over them, to realise they weren't your fault, and they don't make you a terrible person. You're allowed to fuck up, it doesn't mean you're becoming him."

"Yeah. I guess not. So what do I do?"

"Well, relationship advice isn't really my thing, but I guess… You need to be honest, don't tell him everything if you don't want to, but you need to tell him stuff. That's what relationships are all about, right? Sharing stuff."

"You make it sound really easy."

"Oh, it's not, people are complicated as hell, I never know what's going on, that's why _I_ am perpetually single. But you've got a guy who adores you, and don't say he doesn't because everyone knows it, a guy who would walk through fire for you. That's more than most people. You need to trust him, and yourself. Dude, I don't like seeing you so bummed out, okay? I want you to be happy and I know how happy Kin makes you, I'm not saying you've gotta go for it with him, you gotta do whatever feels right, just think about… Just think about Kin, how much he cares about you, even when you do dumb shit, like, did you talk about his arm?"

"Yeah. He was really nice about it."

Yuu gives him an, 'are you serious right now,' look, and smiles, "dude, that boy is head over heels for you. Just, take some time to think about it, alright? And try to let it go."

His face has twisted like he's holding in some kind of badly timed joke, and Tio can feel his lip twitching up as Yuu abruptly gives up being serious and burst into an abysmal rendition of the Frozen soundtrack.

He really has the voice of a goose being molested, but it makes Tio laugh and so he doesn't much mind the ringing in his ears.

* * *

Telling Yuu has definitely helped, but he's come to the decision that he doesn't want to tell Kin just yet, they've talked a little, at work, and a bit over messenger, but they haven't been close like they usually are since they spoke at the bar about Kin's arm, about Tio's guilt.

He misses him.

He asks him if he wants to hang out, and is pretty surprised when he not only agrees, but says that there's a movie he wants them to watch, that he thinks Tio will like, apparently it's got one of those unhappy endings he enjoys. So he heads over and arrives with a six pack of cheap beer, a smile, and a request, that Tio help him clean and re-dress his arm with bandages.

He feels sick with nerves, but he does as he's asked and peels back the now lightly stained bandages, gently rubs antibiotic cream into the reddened, blistered skin and re-bandages it, and little conversation passes between them as he does it. It's going to scar, he says so as he puts the cap back on the cream and packs the spare bandages back into Kin's toiletry bag where they apparently live.

Kin just shrugs, and when Tio looks up he can see the adoration Yuu had spoken of, and for a second the fondness there swallows any words he might have had, "it's fine. It was an accident."

"I wasn't trying to hurt you," it's reassurance for himself as well as constant reinforcement that he isn't a bad person, that he made a mistake and is trying to forgive himself for it, is trying to leave it in his past.

"I know," he says, like it's the easiest thing in the world, and when he reaches over to play with an errant curl and ends up kissing him, that feels easy too, and stress bleeds between their bodies and away, and Tio feels forgiven.

He starts cracking his knuckles, going through one hand first then moving onto the other, and with every pop of bone shifting, Tio can feel himself getting more wound up, can see the edges of red encroach on his vision, can feel himself about to snap.

But then he remembers what Yuu had told him, and he exhales a little sharply, and tells himself to calm down, that it's not a big deal, and says, voice wobbling with barely contained anger, "I really hate it when you do that."

"Do what?"

"Crack your knuckles," he can still feel the edges of irritation turning into illogical rage, and Kin sounds attacked and hurt even without Tio so much as raising his voice, somehow it annoys him more and his shoulders rise and stiffen.

"Oh," he can feel blood thrumming in between his ears and suddenly he thinks of ten more things Kin does that absolutely drive him crazy, but now is not the time and he's trying his best to not explode.

Kin makes it a lot easier, lowering his hand back into his lap, "sorry, I wouldn't have done it if I knew you didn't like it. It's a bad habit anyway, you can keep me in check."

"Damn right I will," he replies, and Kin keeps his hands safely in his lap and distinctly un-cracked, and Tio feels the stress bleed out of his neck, feels it trickle away out of his fingertips and dissipate without causing an explosion. It feels good.

* * *

"You want to get off the grid, don't you?" He doesn't move, even though Noiz has lowered his voice and even he will admit there's something like sympathy in it, kneeling at his side by the bed and unable to see his face where he has the covers pulled all the way up.

"Off the grid?"

"Away from mainstream society, out of town, anyway from people."

An eye and a shock of blue hair appear from inside the dirty, stale smelling nest he's made for himself, and he snorts derisively, but it doesn't sound genuine, it doesn't have any feeling to it. "Sounds like disappearing completely."

"If you like," and Sly obviously does, because he's listening properly for the first time in days and Noiz wonders whether this was a bad idea to suggest because for Sly it seems like disappearing might be all too literal. But he swallows and continues on, less sure of himself than he normally feels, "I know a place, you could hide out for a while. I don't know what you'd do about food though."

He sits up in bed, clothes rumpled and hair sticking up in greasy clumps he awkwardly scrapes off his face, there is fire in his eyes again, "show me."

So he does, he opens his coil, and the drone footage he'd taken weeks before, in preparation for the raid of the Yakuza controlled warehouse, uses complex data mapping software to locate the place he's been thinking of every time he sees Sly lately, and projects it onto his empty bedroom wall.

He talks a little, there's running water, nobody within several miles in any direction, there's Coil signal but only above ground and it's temperamental.

He is, in a way, trying to talk him out of it even as he gives him the idea. The truth is that it isn't nice seeing Sly hurt, and even though he's aware most emotions go over his head, there is something about watching Sly's spark falter and die that makes him feel uncomfortable in his own skin, more so than usual.

He's finally feeling something akin to empathy, he guesses, and he has to admit that the horrible weight he can feel in his chest isn't one he enjoys.

Sly nods, and stares, and nods some more and doesn't look him in the eye once.

"You got any money?"

"Of course."

"Can I have some?"

"How much?"

"Dunno, however much I'll need."

He's going then, Noiz sends him the mapped data and his Coil pings feebly from where it lies buried under a mound of dirty clothes and take-out cartons.

He doesn't tell him to try and keep in touch as he quickly packs a bag, or to let him know if he's in trouble. He doesn't even bid him a proper goodbye at the door, just watches his lazy wave as he heads off with nothing more than a, "see ya."

It feels wrong to Noiz, but he knows better than anyone how cathartic it can be to escape everything for a while, and struggles to work out if his international move is more or less drastic than Sly's decision to become a voluntary hermit.

He decides it is _different,_ sends Sly way too much money in a one-off payment, and reminds himself that thought Sly may be off everyone else's grids, nobody on the island can possibly escape his. Not with the tracking device in the sole of his trainers.

Information broking isn't as exciting and glamorous as it sounds, it is mostly watching, observing, noting things other people wouldn't even think of as memorable. It is sitting in his apartment at three in the morning watching CCTV footage he's hacked into and eating cold, two day old pizza in ratty track pants.

It brings in good money, and he is thankful of that, he is from great wealth after all, and even though none of it had impacted him as a child, he finds that as something approaching an adult, he is glad of the security it brings him, even if none of his shiny toys bring him much joy.

He likes to watch people, it is partially why he became so obsessed with the internet at a young age, why he spent hours watching boring videos of apparent internet celebrities going about their normal lives and talking about their new book deal. It's why he learnt Japanese and then didn't use the internet for anything else actually educational. It too, is why he spends his time either inside watching grainy footage of strangers go about their daily lives, or will spend an entire day walking around the Island with no purpose whatsoever other than to gather information that he can use however he sees fit at a later date.

He gets jobs of course, not very often and not usually very exciting, a girlfriend suspecting cheating, or a boyfriend doing the very same. He doesn't have any feelings about these jobs, whether the suspicions are unfounded or not, it doesn't really bother him to break the bad news, nor to take the cash offered for doing so.

His mother had always called him cold, unfeeling, had declared him a stone of a child and had promptly stopped acknowledging his existence at all well before he hit double digits.

He doesn't mind it much, his father had always been distant, literally as well as emotionally, and his mother had been such an uptight, reputation obsessed sort of person that they never would have gotten along anyway.

She had said, more than once, that he wasn't capable of feeling anything at all, but it seems she was wrong because he misses Sly. As much as he hadn't wanted to befriend him in the first place, and as much as it irks him that he still never got that Rhyme game he'd so desperately wanted, they are something to each other now. He isn't sure quite what that _something_ is, but there is a connection there that he hasn't really felt before, a strange sort of kinship, because they are very similar after all. They're both on the outskirts of society, but while Noiz accepted that a long time ago and is okay with it, he feels like Sly is still resentful about it, while Noiz has never wanted or valued the things other normal people do, he can feel Sly crave them with every part of himself.

It is a little scary, to meet somebody so like himself and to be able to pick out his flaws so easily, to see them reflected in himself, but his childhood moulded him into somebody who can accept his shortcomings and really not give much of a shit about them.

Still, he worries, as he watches Sly's icon on the map leave the town, and head through the Old Residents district, and wonders, as he sees a familiar green icon pass close by him, less than a street away, if maybe seeing Mizuki right then might have changed his mind. Mizuki is something to Sly that Noiz will never understand, will never be, there is something between them that he can't fathom, and he watches Sly's icon blip slowly further and further away from the one person on the Island he wants to be closest too, and all he feels is the molten heat of cheese on his tongue.


	3. Chapter 3

Noiz is right, the place, the solitude it gives him, is exactly what he needed and for the first time in a long while he feels like he can breathe, like he's run far away enough from everything that it can't catch him up just yet.

He knows it will eventually, it's inevitable and he is not a moron, but for now he lets himself feel free and light, buoyed up as the stress and pain and emotions of the last few weeks rise from his shoulders.

He goes exploring, picking around this burnt out shell of what was once probably a busy neighbourhood, full of families and workers and people going about their everyday lives. Now there is just him, in ratty trainers and with his bag full of convenience store bento's and non-perishable snacks, lifting up rocks to spy on the bugs hiding there. It is just him in the empty building the directions had led him to, no need for locks or even doors since the area is long since abandoned and way too far out for even the most adventurous of islanders to venture to.

The electricity works, but it is sluggish and sometimes the fridges noisy hum dies and he knows his fresh food won't be that way for long, it should worry him, but it really doesn't. Noiz had kept his word, and per his rich-boy ways had sent him enough money to rent a damn place, let alone just keep himself fed for as long as he needs to be away.

He's always spent a lot of time by himself, ever since his brother first went into hospital, so solitude is nothing new to him, he's got Ren in his bag should he ever want company, but other than that he is by himself again. He likes it, being independent, leaving the bare-bones apartment when the sun rises and wakes him up, mentally mapping out the environment around him, exploring anything that seems interesting, no matter how dangerous it may be. Stopping for a lunch break of rice balls, pocari sweat and a couple of cigarettes, and carrying on until the sun begins to dip down and he has to head back.

So his days continue on like that, and nothing of interest happens.

* * *

More time passes, and Sly has really lost track, his coil stays charged due to the suns ever-warming rays, but he doesn't check it often and nobody has tried to get in touch anyway. It doesn't bother him, his Grandma doesn't really like technology all that much, and with how distant she'd been the last time they'd seen each other, he thinks she wouldn't care much if she never heard from him again. His loss wouldn't be the one mourned over anyway.

Noiz was never a friend in the true sense, so it doesn't surprise him that he's being left to his own devices, the German had suggested this anyway so he's being left alone to do what he needs to do.

As for Mizuki, well, the lack of messages from him really needs no explanation.

* * *

He doesn't do a whole lot of thinking, despite being on his own, the scenery is distracting enough and he stands on the crumbling, precarious balcony of his new abode, and watches the sun set every night with a cigarette in his hands, and feels fairly okay in himself.

He knows that he'll eventually have to face up to everything that's going on, which honestly would be enough to bring down a lesser man, even to bring down a stronger one, but for now he pushes it to the back of his mind.

His brother being gone still seems unreal and hazy, but considering he'd known his condition was terminal from a young age, he guesses he is not in shock, the death had not been unexpected, so it is easier to handle. As for Mizuki, they've fallen out and made up so many times that Sly still thinks he could leave things to cool down for a little while then swan back into his life, as he has so many times before. Of course he knows that isn't the case now, but they haven't been apart long enough for the reality of them being over entirely to hit him.

But hit him it will, and hard.

He wakes up, and it's fairly warm still, bedded down in his sleeping bag and with his hold-all under his head providing a decent enough pillow. The large window in the apartment had been broken a while ago, and it looks right out across the desolate landscape he now resides in, he can see birds flapping around and twittering, and the ever-cooling sun casting rays of soft white light across the sky.

He thinks that he should get up, eat some breakfast, have a cigarette and maybe go exploring somewhere he hasn't been yet. It's a good idea, he likes exploring as much as anything else he's taken part in lately, he likes to find new things, to see the vines of flowers and trees emerging from piles of old tyres and scrap metal. But he's tired. His body feels heavy and for some reason the idea of leaving the apartment today doesn't appeal to him, as much as the wild calls him to it with constant, soft words that manifest in the crumble of old brickwork and the wind rustling through empty hallways.

He can hear it now, the outside world calling to him, and it's louder than ever when there is no barrier between him and it, the tattered, age stained curtains of the window whipping and dancing to its familiar tune.

Today he just doesn't want to listen, so he rolls over and nestles down further into his makeshift bed on an old mattress, feels the springs dig into his motionless spine, and pretends he can't feel the weather changing as if in protest at his wasted day.

Thick black storm clouds roll in from the ocean that hunkers down, hidden in the distance, and cover his small patch of earth in darkness that stays for a week, raindrops plummeting to the ground and strong winds making the building shake.

He isn't scared, he sits at the juncture between the balcony and the apartment, outside enough to fulfil his need for escape, and close enough to safety to retreat back inside whenever he needs to. He watches huge lake sized puddles form in the street below, and witnesses with silent awe when the storm brings down a towering column of brick and mortar that had once been the corner of a two-storey building.

The earth shakes with the fall and his heart is in his throat, but the sky continues in its violent attack on the island and he seems to be the only witness to it, puffing smoke into the vicious eddy of swirling winds and howling gales. Lightning strikes nearby and the power cuts off, plunging him into darkness, it doesn't worry him, his coil can cast light and the fridge has been empty for a couple of days now.

He turns Ren on, leaving him to crawl his ungainly way out of the bag that has been his cell, unable to hear the soft patter of paws and nails across the wooden floor as he finally frees himself and returns to his side. A faithful companion.

"The ceiling is leaking, this building is structurally unsound."

He should be annoyed that he's stating something _painfully_ obvious, but he finds that he's missed his voice and just scratches between his ears instead, encouraging him to climb messily into his lap and curl up there, head lowered but dark eyes tracking the destruction raging outside.

"We have been here almost three weeks."

Sly doesn't like finding that out, being informed so suddenly that what he had thought was two weeks at most is actually more, his hand stills on Ren's back, then carries right on rubbing, "just a little longer. Then we can go back."

The problem is, he's not sure what's left to go back to.

Ren is smart enough not to mention when three weeks turns into a month, then a month and a half, then two months. He comments on the wild flowers they come across, curls up in the hood of Sly's jacket and offers names and varieties and meanings of blooms and weeds alike, it's interesting enough, Sly guesses, and anything is better than silence.

They head back into town like that for groceries, Ren tucked up in his hood and quietly offering commentary on the trip, how far there is left to go, which stores have the best deals on this day of the week; a Saturday apparently.

He doesn't intend to stick around after stuffing his bag with as much food and drink as he can carry, but it's getting late in the day now and it's a couple of hours walk back and he really hasn't been eating enough.

He leaves Ren in his warehouse to 'guard' his spoils, but they both know he'd be as effective as a koala in defending anything, and he sets his sights on the grimy back alleys he's so used to, feeling a familiar crawling underneath his skin.

Noiz doesn't seem the type to mind his generous gesture being used to buy drugs. Or if he is, he isn't around to know about it.

So buy drugs he does, and so many that the dealer feels safe enough to ask if he's throwing a party.

"No," he answers bluntly, expression utterly deadpan, beeps his coil against the strangers' scanner, and leaves without another word.

* * *

The trek back to the apartments takes less time than the journey out had, Sly is well fed and stocked up, and Ren trots along by his heels, scrambling over chunks of rubble and finding safer routes around the ageing carnage when he cannot safely follow.

Sly doesn't think to ask if he'd rather be carried.

* * *

Ren asks him how he feels, just once, perhaps just testing the waters, because while he can monitor physicality's like heart-rate and BPM and the like, he can't see into Sly's brain, can't work out how he's doing mentally.

He rolls onto his back, staring at the web of crackling plaster and paint peeling off the ceiling, eyes trailing across the deep cracks in the surface, "I'm tired."

He can see without looking, the flash behind Ren's eyes as he accesses his databases, the twitch of his muzzle as he debates whether to state that Sly had ten hours of deep, restful REM sleep the night before, that he has been awake only seventeen point two-six minutes.

He is however, tactful enough to keep his furry mouth well and truly shut, and Sly listens to the sound of him padding round for a moment before he settles down on the cold wooden floor.

It all falls silent, unnervingly, eerily so, there is no breeze today, no soft winds brushing the old leaves across the balcony floor, the curtains hang old and musty beside the space a window should inhabit, no birds caw and crow in their flights across the island. He'd never really minded silence before, he'd never been around it enough to notice it, there was always something making his ears prick up and his spine prickle. Footsteps outside the warehouse, Mizuki shifting in his sleep, the flare of a lighter, swish of liquid, deep, throbbing base notes in a club toilet.

But now there's none of that, he feels the silence crushing in around him, muffling him like a thick duvet, too puffy, too fresh and clean and unscathed. He doesn't enjoy it, he can hear his own heartbeat, the thrumming of blood through his veins, the soft scratching of his fingernails against the dry skin of his palm, a metronome.

He wants Ren to talk, to tell him about something, history or geography or anything, he wants to know the name of the black, thick-beaked birds they'd seen pecking at a decaying creature of some sort. He thinks they're just crows, but they could be anything, and he wants to know.

The silence bubbles up around him and he feels queasy, rolling over abruptly and Ren staring at him blankly, unsurprised, "what kind of dog are you?"

* * *

He develops quite the habit of asking questions, it becomes a bit obsessive but he's pretty sure his Grandma would smile and answer with only mild irritation, she'd encourage it, call it curiosity, a desire to learn.

She wouldn't know it was just to avoid the things the silence holds, she'd bring down big books, medical journals and atlases, ornithological guides, descriptions of flora and fauna with vivid illustrations. She'd teach him, she'd start getting that hopeful, enthusiastic look in her eyes she does occasionally, the same look she'd gotten when he came home with Ren in tow, the look she gets when he focuses his efforts on something worthwhile. Something she considers worthwhile.

She'd pull out his old books from school, the children's guide to kanji, she'd try to get him to practice his atrocious writing skills, teach him new characters and words, get his feelings onto paper for the days when speaking fails him. Keep a diary, she might say, a journal, doesn't have to be neat or organised, it can be whatever you want, write down good things that happen, terrible things, normal things. Keep it all written down, just for you, to vent when you need to, to be angry and spiteful and vindictive, to be kept between yourself and the paper, it's cathartic, she says. Sly doesn't know what cathartic means. It sounds like therapy.

He misses her. She seems so far away, but he has to admit that his previous proximity didn't exactly make her much closer. She's been that way for a while, distant, like she's taken a step back from him and doesn't ever want to get closer, it's worse, now that her Grandson is dead. She'd transferred her love over, one Grandson to the other, and now the one that got all her reserves is gone and has taken all of it with him.

He wants to be with her, to comfort her like he had done the day he had died, to hold her hand and make her a pot of shitty tea and not be sure if she takes milk or not because he doesn't see her enough to know things that he should. He wants the kiss goodbye, the one she presses dryly to his cheek and that he hates because she is so old, so frail, and he won't admit that it scares him to watch her age. It smells of lavender and must and exhaustion, and once it's gone he won't have anything left except a house full of memories that are not his and he is too late to ask about.

He'll have his brother's bedroom, exactly the way it was when he went into hospital, full of childish fancies and stuffed animals and tiny jumpers in soft colours that smell of the moth balls used to preserve them. He'll have photographs, of their parents, of his Grandma, of his brother when he was better, with his hair in intricately formed plaits, lying in bed, sickly but smiling as Sly curls up at the other end and clumsily reads through a magazine aloud. Christmas with a black eye and a scowl that doesn't quite meet his eyes, squatting down next to a wheelchair that is too wide for the occupant's tiny frame, throwing up a peace sign at the camera, remembering the disapproval from behind the lens.

He doesn't say his brother's name anymore, he hasn't since he died, Ren had used it once, and hearing it made illogical rage and a wave of sorrow rise in his chest, so strong it made him feel sick and he'd shouted at him, teeth gritted together because how _dare_ he say his name.

He hadn't since, he'd apologised and said he should have considered Sly's feelings, and he had been immediately forgiven under a flood of guilt that went in both directions. It makes him think of Mizuki somehow. Of what he would have done with that name, of how he would have yelled it at him over and over and over until Sly had cracked, until the reverence of it was gone and it was just a name.

He wouldn't have understood the way Ren had, he would have used it as a weapon to get Sly to open up, to talk about it, to admit he misses his brother and that part of him feels like it's dead now, rotting away within the confines of flesh.

Thinking of him as his brother, instead of by his name is somehow better, it offers distance, but sometimes when he closes his eyes at night and feels Ren's puff of a tail against his arm he can hear Mizuki screaming the name over and over and hot, prickling grief overwhelms him, because it would be cruel, but he knows it would help. Ren is too considerate, Granny is lost in her own mourning, her family shrinks day by day and Sly does nothing to help her feel like she isn't alone, like neither of them are truly alone.

"Tell me about the ocean."

"The ocean?" He wants clarification, does he want sizes and names and locations, which ocean does he mean, does he want to know about sea creatures, ships, boats, myths and legends and the Bermuda triangle. "What would you like to know?"

"Everything," he says, and closes his eyes.

* * *

"Mizuki, Mizuki! Earth to Mizuki, hello!" He snaps back into awareness as a hand waves in his face, millimetres from actually hitting him as he jerks towards it and it abruptly retreats, he feels disoriented for a minute, sat in his apartment, the bubble of sound returning to him. "Your turn to pick a card, try not to zone out, Yuu's found a sharpie and he _will_ draw a dick on someone if he can."

He filters back into reality with remarkable ease, an over exaggerated glance at his half-empty glass and a laughing comment that the vodka hit him fast, and nobody bats an eyelid as he reaches for a card on the messy coffee table. The cup in the middle looks disgusting, a horrifically red-brown that just looks like blood, complete with clots in the bottom courtesy of the fruit punch provided by Michi and completed with crushed red berries. It's delicious, but combined with beer, vodka, rum, coke, lemonade, Fanta and about 3 other drinks in the 'Kings Cup', it doesn't look at all appealing.

He flips the card over and is infinitely relieved not to see a king, even though he hasn't been paying enough attention to know if the other 3 have been drawn and the vile concoction that is 'Kings Cup', is his to chug. He plays his three, points at Kin, Yuu and Tio, and watches as they all take a drink from their cups. Red cups, Michi and Kaoru had seen an American movie and insisted that they needed both those and the glass bowl of punch they'd brought with them in three re-used coke bottles, setting it up on the dining table with much showmanship.

He excuses himself to go for a smoke, and nobody is really surprised because even though this is his apartment and people can smoke indoors if they want, he's aware that some of his guys don't appreciate the smell or the smoke itself, and Hideaki in particular doesn't want to take the smell of cigarettes back to his baby girl. Tio accompanies him, and together they head through the ignored gym and onto the back balcony.

The silence is companionable as they send whorls of smoke out into the night air, Tio yawns and stretches his arms and neck and Mizuki just stares absently at the glowing tip of his cigarette and sees his friend out of the corner of his eye.

"You don't seem very drunk."

"Huh?"

"When you zoned out before, you said the vodka hit you, but you don't seem drunk. What were you thinking about?" He's done stretching the tension out of his neck now, coming to join him, leaning against the balcony, arms crossed on the metal barriers that stop them falling down to the street below.

"Sly would like this. This kinda party."

He doesn't respond, just hums quietly and nods, taking another drag and it's so quiet that Mizuki can hear the quiet crackle of the paper burning down, "he probably would. You missing him?"

"Not sure," he responds, finally looking Tio's way with a sheepish smile and a weak shrug, puffing on his cigarette. He hasn't had one yet today, it's always good, the first. "More thinking about how it might have been if it worked, you know? He might be able to come to things like this, play Kings Cup with us."

"Not much use focusing on things that didn't happen," he's not being mean and they both know it, and Mizuki has to admit that he's absolutely right, it's a waste of time and energy to be thinking about what could have been, but it hurts to think of what did happen too. "Come on, finish your cigarette, come back in and think about now, about your friends."

"Sure."

"Or, think about how fucked up you're going to get, and how much fun it's going to be to be totally wasted with us all."

Tio's grinning, it's cute, the way it slices his face in half with how damned wide it is, and Mizuki can't stop his own smile forming as he looks at him, how even with the faint bags under his eyes and his chewed down fingernails, he manages to look so effortlessly untroubled. Mizuki thinks he should start listening to him more, he seems to have his shit together.

"Are _you_ getting wasted?" He's seen Tio fill his cup a couple of times, but not a whole lot, and if he's encouraging this he cannot be allowed to remain such a hypocrite.

"Well, Kin's taking me home, and I'm pretty sure he _could_ carry me if he needed to… So, I can get as fucked up as I want, and you're _already_ home…" He trails off, his meaning clear because all Mizuki has to do is crawl to bed or onto the couch and he's sorted, there is no walk back home for him.

He's not quite done with his smoke, but he stubs it out on the railing instead and tosses it down into the street, "alright, let's get plastered."

Tio cheers, arms raised above his head as he does a little victory dance of sorts, more a weird jiggling of his feet, but he looks so ridiculous and so endearingly supportive that Mizuki snorts into laughter as he follows him inside.

* * *

He has people over his a lot these days, invites a few upstairs into his apartment instead of to their usual mass gatherings in the bar. He's not sure what the reason is for this party, he thinks maybe it was somebodies birthday recently, but that is a pretty pathetic excuse and besides, his guys never needed an excuse to party.

He has movie nights, invites a couple of the guys over, gets take-out and provides the beers, fills the evenings with people if he can, with work if he can't, or with housework if things get really desperate.

But sometimes, halfway through the night, he'll look at the people around him, and just wish they were all gone, wish they would take their empty bottles and cartons of noodles and happiness with them and just leave him alone.

He doesn't feel too great the next day, he staggers off his couch to find his apartment an absolute disaster, and the mere smell wafting off the remains of the punch bowl is enough to send him running into the kitchen to puke into his sink, which is full of dirty plastic cups.

But still, the hangover raging behind his eyes is enough to take his mind off Sly for one day, all there is to do that night, as he starts feeling mildly more alive, is to wash, rinse, and repeat.

* * *

But he can't just get drunk forever, the days of binge drinking himself into a stupor every night begin to take their toll and he turns up for work with shaking hands and eyes so bloodshot he can see red every time he blinks. He excuses himself to vomit in the bathroom, it too, is red. He's damaged his stomach lining, or torn his throat, the blood is fresh and vivid, his teeth feel fuzzy and his head throbs in time with the drip of the tap.

It reminds him of Sly, and he bends double to puke again as if covering up the memory.

Kouhaku sends him back upstairs with a frown and a bottle of water he pushes insistently into his arms.

He feels like death and must look just as bad because there is a crack in the wardrobe mirror he'd never noticed before, spreading across the middle like a thin scar, distorting his blurring reflection and showing a man crumbling as he crashes onto the bed.

He's been in the bar for ten minutes, had two shots with a hen party, poured himself a beer and spilt lemon wedges all over the floor when Hideaki approaches him, takes the drink out of his hand before he's even half done with it, and tells him sternly that it's his night off.

It isn't, but Kaoru's eyes are on them as he is told to leave, as if he is some sort of backup.

He takes his beer back, flips them both off childishly and heads upstairs to sulk.

Kin and Tio will work with him, but not until they have a serious talk with him and inform him, and the nerve of it, that the team has placed him on an alcohol ban at work. Kin takes a shot out of his hand, Tio pours his double (triple) vodka cranberry away when he isn't looking, and they watch him like hawks for the entire shift.

He tries to question Tio at the end of the shift, and is cut off without apology or sympathy with the simple sentence "I know you miss Sly, but I will not sit back and let you become an alcoholic. Sort your shit out, Mizuki."

"I think you need to worry about your own shit."

"This isn't about me, I've got my shit under control," this is rapidly becoming childish, but Mizuki catches the look Kin aims at Tio as he speaks, it's incredulous and it says a lot more than Tio is right now.

"Seems Kin isn't too sure about that," it's a nasty, underhanded kind of thing to say, but this is what he has to resort to so as not to feel so attacked. Tio looks speechless, hurt, at least until he turns to look at Kin with a glare so fiery he quails under it.

He can hear them arguing from the back room he's sequestered himself into, his apartment is too entangled with memories of Sly and right now he needs some space. He should feel guilty that without his input they wouldn't be yelling at each other, but he doesn't really care, he listens in instead, realises there are cracks deep under the cosy façade Tio and Kin have in place.

It's interesting, to find another relationship as infinitely flawed as him and Sly's, and he finds himself humming under his breath as he works on a new sketch and listens to them bicker. He feels a lot more at ease than he has in a while.

* * *

"You know, these little pity parties you keep having are getting really old," Tio and Kin had been arguing from the moment they got into work, and even under the airs of professionalism and doing what they are paid to do, they still manage to aim jabs at each other. So it's really no surprise that Tio's foul mood is now being directed at him. They'd been too busy being irritatingly annoyed at each other to monitor his drinking, and now he's two glasses past being able to control anything he's saying. "Would you stop feeling sorry for yourself and be useful for once?"

"Oh fuck off, as if you're not just as bad as me." He's found a bottle of wine, it isn't his, it came from one of the booth tables in the corner but it's half full so he's swigging from the neck anyway.

"You are one drink away from crying about how it's your parents fault for abandoning you, but you know what? You can't blame everything on your shitty parents."

It's a sore spot and they both know it and Mizuki goes from only slightly irked to incensed with rage in less than a second, "my parents are not shitty. They were good people."

He doesn't know that, can't know that, and Tio goes in for the kill, "can't have been that good if they just dumped you like that."

Mizuki slams the bottle onto the table, turns around, and punches him in the face. Tio retaliates, and they are rolling around on the floor trying to attack each other with elbows and nails and hands yanking in hair. It's a childish tussle, Tio's knee slams into Mizuki's crotch and he elbows him hard in the cheek, but he's too drunk and things start to spin and they're both running out of breath, out of real anger, because they are both fighting the wrong person.

His hand is on Tio's throat but he's barely squeezing and both of them know things would never go that far, Mizuki's nose is throbbing and when he grabs Tio's hair and kisses him it tastes of blood.

It's violent, and messy, and it reminds him of Sly so much he almost forgets who he's kissing until he's shoved aside and a foot knocks all the breath out of him and Tio is stood over him, panting, lips swollen and a bead of blood trickling down his chin.

"Sort out your life, Mizuki, or nobody else is going to want to be in it."

* * *

There's something wrong with Tio and it isn't just the bruising on his face, he seems anxious, but Mizuki isn't really feeling very sympathetic towards him and he seems fine now, sat at a table near the bar, Kin on one side and Yuu opposite them, smiling and laughing and picking at the label on his beer.

He bites at his nails, then fiddles with his hair, balls up the tiny shreds of beer-bottle label and makes them into a neat pile, glances up and gives Mizuki a dark look as he deliberately flicks them all onto the floor. It's childish, but there's a glint of something else in his gaze.

* * *

His thoughts had been worryingly, irritatingly abstract lately, but he supposed it made sense, thinking about real life situations was a damn sight more painful these days.  
But right now? He was thinking over something he'd been told by Sly after his brother's death, 'it feels like having an open wound.' He wasn't wrong, every time he breathed it was like he'd been stabbed between the ribs, chest aching and head throbbing, fingers tinging as if electrocuted, remembering when they'd rested on white.  
Mizuki had soothed Sly though, saying that it might feel like he was bleeding out now, but that it would scab over and heal soon enough. But even that was abstract, speaking in metaphor and figurative language that had no solid setting in the world they had to exist in, bodies aching and souls tired despite days hiding in bed.  
But of course these days he was more of a philosopher than anything else, finding himself lying in the bathtub for nearly two hours just trying to work out when a cut became a scar instead. But he supposed it wasn't a cut, more of a gash or even a limb lost after some massive trauma, part of him feeling missing, like Sly had taken one of the arms that used to hold him when he left. Though he guessed that wouldn't be so bad, metaphorically of course, because at least that way he'd know he was still with him, keeping him warm and safe. Too distracted to even be able to notice the water had grown cold and his heavy thoughts disturbingly morbid, just sinking down into the dirty water of a week's wallowing and frowning because he'd lost his train of thought again.  
But it came back easily enough and he was thinking of definitions now, solid, socially accepted way to define the words. Cut. Scar.  
A cut was something fresh, open and not yet healing at all, maybe still bleeding or at least oozing clear plasma as it tried vainly to heal. So then a scar was by definition the stage after scabbing, where nothing other than deliberate re-opening could cause either blood or pain. So a scar meant healing, symbolised recovery, but he knew from his own body that sometimes scars could be worse than a cut, itching and throbbing. At least a cut would go away, a scar was nearly always permanent and he knew how many years it took the worst of them to fade into semi invisibility.

There's a knock at the door and he hadn't even noticed his head had sunk almost completely below the water until he hears the door open and a voice call his name, he jerks back into reality where scars are just scars and cuts are only cuts. He think he calls something back, that he'll be a minute, or is on his way, he's not sure what it is, the fog of steam in the bathroom is filling up his brain and he wraps a towel round his waist and exits the room and smashes back into normality.

Tio stands in his living room, in the awkward dead space between the dining table and the sofa, looking nervous and something flickering again in his gaze as his eyes sweep across Mizuki, the water trailing around his chest, the towel riding low on his hips.

He opens his mouth and Mizuki wants to fight him again, to push him down and wrestle with him, to hit his head against the wooden floor so he sees stars, to put his hand around his throat and maybe squeeze a little this time. When he kisses him he wants it to taste of metal.

"I'm sorry, for what I said about your parents."

Disappointment floods him, thick and hot, and the strange veil that had obscured his vision clears. They aren't going to fight, so Mizuki lies instead, "I'm sorry I hit you."

Neither of them apologise for the kiss, neither of them mention it but Tio's bottom lip is split and swollen and Mizuki thinks it looks perfect wrapped around a beer bottle.


	4. Chapter 4

Mizuki is Not Doing Well. He feels the capitals are necessary after realising he's spent all twenty minutes of his shift so far staring at Tio instead of doing anything remotely useful. It is, he deduces, entirely Sly's fault for planting the idea in his head, he is Very Open To Suggestion, and again, the capitals. This is important as it is a Key Personality Trait that he hadn't been aware of before.

Other Key Personality Traits include;

'Raging jealousy (about anything or anyone)

The ability to be childish and/or petty in any situation

A constant feeling of being 'hard done to'

Frequent blaming of his problems on other people (see; parents, see also; Sly)

Fear of abandonment

Fear of commitment

Desire to have what he can't have

Dissatisfaction when he gets what he wants'

He's actually writing this down on a napkin, in between staring at Tio and pretending to mess around with the soda dispenser.

He draws arrows joining the last two pairs of points, they are largely linked and interchangeable. He is halfway through writing, 'substitutes healthy emotional outlets with substance abuse,' when Tio all but pops up behind his shoulder like a particularly insistent 'whack-a-mole' character.

"What are you writing?"

"A list of my Key Personality Traits."

"Sounds important."

"It is."

"Can I see?" He's already been peering, but Mizuki appreciates the question anyway, shifting aside on his bar stool so Tio can slide the napkin towards himself to read. He looks amused as his eyes flicker down the list, "you've forgotten 'fits of anger and/or aggression."

"Doesn't that come under the first two points?"

"Well yes, but it deserves its own point. Last time I said something nasty to you, you punched me in the face. Hard."

"I kissed it better though," it is a joke, and the truth, but he didn't think before he spoke and that definitely needs to be added to the list, 'misreads moods/atmospheres'.

Maybe he should just add 'inability to keep his big fucking mouth shut.'

"Yes. You did," he speaks slowly, he at least is weighing and measuring his words before letting them escape into the air, Mizuki has thrown the scales out of a fifth floor window. "Why _did_ you do that?"

He feels hot under the collar, Tio is staring insistently at him, and he is pretty much staring back, pausing to let out a breathy chuckle and the excuse he gives for most of his bad decisions, "I was very drunk."

"Mm, true." This reason seems to be acceptable, Tio inclines his head and a hint of a smile plays on his lips, twitching at his cheeks, "we're not telling Kin."

It isn't a question but Mizuki already knows the answer, "no."

"He doesn't need to know." He is being strangely calm about this, he doesn't seem to be freaking out about it, about keeping a secret from him. It sounds almost like he's okay with the entire situation, but Mizuki knows he struggles to Keep His Big Fucking Mouth Shut, so he doesn't continue in the same vein. "Come help me set up, I'll let you know if I think of anything you can add to your list."

By the end of the shift, the list is at 20 items and includes, but is not limited to, Workaholic, Obsessive, and Loses Concentration Easily. This one is added as Tio bends down to pick up a bottle cap he's dropped and Mizuki unconsciously tries to fit two pints worth of beer into one pint glass. Safe to say, it doesn't go well and the beer is doled out in a wet glass with no frothy head in sight, customer looking only slightly concerned as the beer pump slowly drips a puddle onto the floor.

"Focus, Mizuki," Tio just smiles, pointing at the list, not minding being stared at. "Loses Concentration Easily, write it down."

He does, and Tio thinks that he shouldn't like Mizuki looking at him the way he likes Kin looking at him, realising ten minutes later when he spies Mizuki's gaze flitting away again, that the gazes are very different. Mizuki stares at him like he wants him, Kin stares at him like he adores him.

* * *

Kin won't kiss him until his lip heals, he doesn't say so but it's obvious when his lips trail a path to his cheek instead of where they should land, when he offers him an ice-pack for his swelling eye, when he thumbs over his cheekbone and watches bruises spread.

He doesn't say anything of importance, not much at all, Tio doesn't really listen to him as his mouth opens, just stares absently through him, to the paint-peeling wall behind his head and a little to the left. Something had been thrown there once, maybe even before Kin arrived, a plate, perhaps.

"Did Mizuki do this?" It's taken him a long time to ask, and Tio just nods and readjusts the pack obscuring his vision, sending trails of cool water down his cheek and dampening his shirt collar. There's blood on his sleeve, where it hangs a little too long, under his fingernails too.

He can feel hands around his throat.

Kin nods, or shakes his head, definitely one of the two, and sighs long through his nose, the breeze washing over Tio's face.

He feels queasy.

"I won't let him hurt you again, okay?" He makes it sound like it was Mizuki's fault, like somehow he will protect Tio from something he doesn't need to be protected from.

His fingers cup his face, his jaw, curling under his ears. He imagines them further down, squeezing, pressing into his windpipe.

"Okay," he says, and breathes.

* * *

It's Mizuki's fault that they're arguing, or Mizuki implanted the seed of doubt in Tio's mind at any rate, left it there to fester and spoil. The idea that Kin thinks something is wrong with him. It builds and simmers and slowly begins to boil over, frothing into him when he's least expecting it and leaving an acrid, burning taste in his mouth.

He can't quite remember how it started, he hasn't been sleeping well, his dreams are filled with Mizuki pushing him down and kissing him, blood bursts red behind his retinas and he wakes up shaking and sweaty, sheets tangling at his throat, cutting off the oxygen. He leaves them be as he comes into consciousness, feeling the constant pressure, the slight rush of light headedness as he sits up and the sheets tighten to choke.

Kin had asked if he's okay, his neck is red, his eyes are bleary, these are things they both know but Kin does not outwardly mention, he just asks if everything is alright, is something bothering him.

The pan reaches capacity, the water is bubbling and spitting, the hob hisses as it escapes and again he can taste burning.

"A lot of things are bothering me, mostly you."

Kins face falls, he can sense an argument coming, can see the storm clouds looming on the horizon, and instead of chasing them away as he'd hoped, he seems to have unleashed the downpour. "What?"

" _You're_ bothering me."

Self-defence, preservation, call it what you will, Kin is trying to explain himself and he really doesn't need to because he isn't doing anything wrong, rarely does, but it grinds on Tio anyway.

"I'm just checking you're okay, you look tired, babe."

He's called him that a couple of times before, Tio always pretends not to hear it.

Not today.

"Don't call me that!"

Kin blinks at him, his gaze is even, steady as he easily maintains eye contact, sometimes he feels to Tio like a brick wall, so stable and unmovable, he likes it as much as he resents his strength. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be _sorry,_ why are you always _sorry_?" He says it like apologising is something pathetic, like there isn't strength in admitting fault, in being the bigger person. He always manages to stay so calm, so composed even while Tio screams at him, puts him down, berates him and accuses him of things that anyone else might appreciate.

"I did something you don't like, so I'm sorry."

"You do lots of things I don't like without apologising."

"Like what?"

"Like when you look at me like something's _wrong_ with me, like when you side with Mizuki when he says I need to get my shit together when we both know I'm perfectly fine."

"Okay, are you going to keep yelling at me if I say I'm sorry for that too?" He's being so careful, so cautious to as not upset him, when really they both know he could breathe and somehow cause Tio to become incensed.

"No!"

"Look, Tio, there's no use lying to me and pretending everything's okay. I don't think anything's wrong with you, except that black eye. But I know something's on your mind and I want to help. Can't you just let me help?"

He needs a reason to fight him, but there isn't one, Kin has never given him any real reason to bicker with him, let alone actually fight like he wants, but he feels pent up and frustrated, and Kin's understanding tone is driving him crazy because he's so considerate he can't stand it.

"You know how I got the black eye?"

"Mizuki hit you."

"Do you know why he hit me?" Kin doesn't answer, he just sighs and finally breaks his gaze, expression saying how tired of this he is, how much he wishes Tio would just tell him what's going on so he could stop snapping at him for every insignificant thing he does. "He hit me because I told him his parents were shitty for abandoning him."

He isn't frowning, but his lips are distinctly downturned, his eyebrows creased and his dimple's lost to the expression on his face, concerned, disappointed, confused.

"So he hit me and I hit him back and we had a _fight_ ," it sounds like he's trying to make the blame equal here even though the more he thinks on it, the more he realises he got exactly what he was looking for, down to the ending. "And then he _kissed_ me."

Now he's paying attention, his eyes crinkle, an actual frown now, "he what?"

"He kissed me, he punched me and I bust his nose and then he kissed me." He doesn't know why the detail is important, why he mentions the injuries he'd caused, maybe it's because he's drawing on the only experience he has. It is not a good template to build a relationship on, to build a life on, but it's all he has.

"Did you let him?"

Tio shrugs, he sort of did, sort of didn't, he'd thrown him off after so maybe that counts as having refused his advance, but he can admit he'd hesitated to do that at first. He can taste blood now, it isn't his own.

"Why?"

"He was drunk."

"He was, or you were?"

"He was." Kin doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything, he just watches Tio, disappointment flooding him even though somehow he isn't at all surprised. "Aren't you angry?"

"I'm not going to fight you, Tio." He knows what he wants, what he's angling for, suspects that maybe he's trying to find a way to escape this entire thing, a get out card that he thinks he needs.

"Why not? I let Mizuki _kiss_ me, you should hate me!"

"I don't, and I'm not going to fight you."

"Why?"

"I don't want to hurt you," he thinks it's obvious, Tio apparently disagrees.

"So you're just going to sit there and let me yell at you?"

"Guess so. I'm pretty used to it," it's the closest to an angry response that he's gotten in a while, and he latches onto it, sinks his teeth in and raggs like a dog.

"You're pathetic, you're really going to stick around while I treat you like shit? You're like my fucking mother."

"What?" Kin struggles to follow Tio's weirdly one-sided rants at the best of times, more so when he seems to be thinking aloud rather than consciously speaking, but now his head is reeling because what is _that_ supposed to mean?

"I said, you're just like my fucking…" He trails off, blinks as if coming back to himself, closes his mouth abruptly and shakes his head dismissively. Definitely thinking aloud then. "Never mind."

"How am I like your mother? Tio? You're freaking me out." He's working with riddles and half-truths, attempting to decipher secrets that Tio won't tell him and he knows he's unlikely to guess even as he tries to do just that.

"Nothing, doesn't matter."

It isn't nothing. It _does_ matter. But he lets silence hang in the air for a while before he replies and his tone is so disbelieving he's surprised Tio isn't yelling at him for his distinct lack of trust in what he's saying. "Okay. I guess you're more like your father then?"

"What?"

"If I'm like your mother, and we're not very alike, you must take after your father."

"Oh. Yeah, guess so."

He doesn't stick around much longer after that.

'Family stuff', Tio had said, just some stuff to sort through, to work out. Kin thought he got that at the time, but the more Tio accidentally spills, the more he realises he doesn't understand at all. Whatever had happened with his mother and father is above his head and buried deep in Tio's. He just hopes one day there is enough trust between them that he will reveal it. He decides not to hold his breath and doesn't invite Tio over again.

* * *

It's Yuu, loud, boisterous, childish Yuu, who notices something is wrong, who seeks him out when Kin is bartending and the other is meant to be on a night out, who leaves his gaggle of friends to follow him out the back with a frown and an offered cigarette. Yuu doesn't smoke.

He's clearly planned this.

"Kin, my dude, you seem a bit beaten down. What's up?"

"My boyfriends a nightmare."

"Didn't know you guys were official," Kin's on break, or sort of anyway, he's excused himself from the bar at any rate, from the thumping music and Tio's cold shoulder and the handful of guests having fun.

"We're not."

"Oh, so, what's up?"

He sighs, rubbing a hand down his face and sinking back onto a beer keg, it's not a comfortable seat, the tap digs into the bottom knob of his spine and the metal is freezing through his jeans. The lighter, again, offered over as if Yuu would ever be carrying this stuff, against smoking as he is, flares into life and as he takes a deep inhale his lungs burn so hard it brings tears to his eyes. That's his excuse anyway.

"He's just, just an absolute nightmare."

"You already said that," but he's smiling, leaning against the wall opposite, eyes wide and bright and ready to listen. Kin has no idea what about him inspires so much trust when he also seems like a massive gossip. He guesses it's because he can draw the line between what is good coffee chatter, and what is to be kept to himself. Some people will share anything they can if it will get a reaction, Yuu isn't like that, he has more sense, more tact.

Kin trusts him.

"He's, he's just being so difficult, about everything. I don't know what's going on with him, one minute everything's fine, then he's yelling at me about nothing, then he's all freaked out and sorry and apologising and trying to fix everything." He's not even sure how to word it, the cycle they've gotten into, hurt, apology, normalcy. It just loops, over and over and he's getting sick of it, the rapid spin of their dynamic making his stomach hurt and his head fuzzy. He pauses to take a drag, and Yuu is tactfully silent, even without Kin knowing what to say, he knows he isn't done yet. "It's like, he's constantly breaking things and then fixing them. Like, there's never any reason to break them in the first place. I can't tell if he likes the arguing, or-"

"Or?"

"Or I don't know," he throws his hands up and ash tumbles onto the floor between them, he's frustrated, and tired. "It was fine, for a bit, but now everything's just-"

"Difficult?"

" _He's_ difficult. It's like- God, I can't believe I'm about to say this, it's like I'm in an abusive relationship, but it's not even a relationship so what the fuck am I meant to call it? He just- Fights me on everything, just because he can. He's made this shitty fucking _loop_ , he acts like shit, we don't talk for a bit, he apologises, everything's fine again but then it just repeats over and over."

"Do you think he's really sorry? When he apologises?" Kin is focusing on his shoes, on the slow burn of his cigarette, he doesn't notice the shuffling of Yuu's feet, the look on his face, his change of tone.

"Yeah, he really beats himself up about it, like- You can't tell anybody this, alright?" Yuu nods, he thinks he knows what he's going to say anyway. "He burnt my arm. He- I don't think he meant to, he tried to break up with me or- Or whatever, so we were arguing, and he just flipped out and shoved me into the cooker."

He looks up, Yuu winces before he manages to school his expression into something more neutral, he doesn't tell him he already knew that. He's starting to feel like a deeply underqualified relationship counsellor.

"I was- So _angry_ ," He doesn't need to say it, Yuu can hear it in his voice, in the grip of his fingers, the slight shake of them. He's still angry, "but then I looked up, and he was just- I've never seen anyone look that terrified, it was like he'd seen a ghost."

"Did he apologise?"

"Yeah. I could tell he'd been beating himself up about it. It's just- If it makes him feel that bad, that guilty, why does he keep doing it?"

"Has he hurt you since? Physically, I mean." There's an urgency to his voice and Kin doesn't miss it.

"No. A couple more shoves, nothing serious. Why? Do you know something?"

"I think you need to talk to him about this, you- I don't think you can go as far to say it's an abusive relationship," Kin opens his mouth to say that he hadn't said that, but Yuu raises a hand to silence him and continues. "But it sounds pretty toxic to me, right now. You need to work out if it's fixable. I, look, I really like Tio, he's my friend, but if being with him is going to mess you up, maybe you shouldn't be with him."

It's gone very quiet, there's still thumping music from the bar, voices mingling together discordantly. His cigarette slowly burns to death between his feet, but his ears don't seem to notice any of it, "I love him."

Really, there's nothing Yuu can say about that.

* * *

Sly is blissfully unaware of anything, he doesn't know Mizuki has kissed Tio, he doesn't know that right now Mizuki is passed out on his sofa, so drunk the entire room span for an hour before sleep was kind enough to claim him.

He doesn't know that when Tio jerked off in the shower that morning, he was thinking about Mizuki's hand on his throat, stealing his oxygen, was thinking of blood in his mouth, was thinking of violence and pain. He doesn't know that he cried afterwards.

He wouldn't know even if he was back in town, he has one sole focus at the moment, and it lies innocuously in front of him in a little plastic bag with a releasable top.

It's been about an hour. He thinks it has anyway, his coil is dead, there's not enough sunlight in the room to allow it to charge and he's had no desire to walk to the balcony to put it where it needs to be. Ren is turned off. It's far too quiet and the sun has sunk below the horizon and the moon has come to replace it.

Maybe more like two hours then.

He exhales, shaky, and blinks at the bag, arms twitching and legs aching under him where they've been crossed for however long he's been fighting with himself.

He wants the drugs, he really, really wants them. He wants to wipe out for the night and wake up late tomorrow. He wants to feel better. There's a numbness in his bones and just the idea of moving seems impossible, he's tried to sleep, but he just ends up lying there thinking and thinking and _thinking_.

He thinks his head is going to explode.

He needs an outlet and there's nobody to fight here, nobody to fuck him hard enough that he forgets everything that's swirling round his brain at a million miles an hour. It's too fast to process, his brother, Noiz on top of him, the bruise on his hip, the look in Mizuki's eyes, his Granny's disappointment.

He squeezes his eyes shut, presses his fists into them until he sees stars. _The look in Mizuki's eyes, the look in Mizuki's eyes, the look in Mizuki's eyes._

He doesn't realise he's begun to rock, just the tiniest bit, his body swaying unconsciously, his throat is getting tight and blood is whooshing through his ears, his eyes sting, he's pressing down too hard, he's going to hurt himself. _Noiz on top of him, confused green eyes, a calculating stare as he flees the aftermath._

 _Crying in the bathroom, door locked behind him, naked and curled up, dirty and sweaty with a bruise on his hip._

 _The look in Mizuki's eyes, his Granny's disappointment, his brother in that wooden box._

He thinks he's going to throw up, his body aches and nobody's head should ever be this full, his nails are digging into his cheeks, his eyelids, they want to burst, he wants to scream but he bites his lip hard and drags broken fingernails down his skin.

It hurts, but not badly enough and it distracts him for maybe two seconds, there's blood trailing down his cheek, he can feel it slowly congealing as it dries out. A superficial wound, it'll be healed in a couple of days.

He gets the sudden, uncontrollable urge to rip his own face off, to dig in with nails until he's dripping with blood and his skin is peeling off in long, grotesque strips.

He hasn't felt this self-destructive in a really long time, and as he raises his fingers to his face to scratch and scratch at his cheeks, he is suddenly scared.

He wants his brother to pull his hands away and carefully clean the blood off his nails, to dab antiseptic on his cheeks, to wrap his arms around him and say nothing, just hold him close and understand without judging.

There's blood under his nails and his face burns but he keeps going and fear grows with each harsh dig of his fingers into the delicate skin under his eyes.

He wants his Granny, he wants fresh, hot doughnuts dusted with sugar and a mug of tea with more milk than she thinks is necessary, he wants a bedtime story like when he was small, huddled all together on one bed, listening intently.

He doesn't want his parents, he never does, not even in his dreams.

He wants Noiz to hand him a pizza box and a controller, to sit side by side, arms and thighs squished together on his big couch, to play Mario Kart and get so lost in the competition that even after the race is done he forgets everything for a little while.

He wants them all so badly, right now when everything is falling apart, he wants somebody to come along and take care of him, to pull his hands away instead of him having to do it himself.

His fingers are streaked with red and it's so violent, so visceral that he just stares at them. Wonders what damage he's done to himself, wonders how fucked up his face is, wonders if anybody will even recognise him right now.

He stares at his fingers, and thinks about what he's done. His pulse is so loud, blood is screaming through his body and he's started to shake, adrenalin, or some chemical forming in his brain, a response to the pain.

He looks at his hands, and he's done it again, he can hear whispering, _you've done it again_ , _you're always the same_ , _you're never going to change_ , _you're stuck like this forever_ , _how are you this messed up?_

It's his voice, and Noiz's, and Granny's, and his brothers, and Mizuki's all at once and he's suddenly furious with himself, with everything he is and every single way he's ever messed up. His breath is coming too fast and fear morphs into rage so fast.

He opens his mouth, salt sliding into his cuts and burning, and he _screams_.

* * *

Allmates are an interesting piece of technology, they are not quite AI's, in that they don't have actual thoughts and feelings that are their own, instead their complex programming allows them to create a façade of a personality based on their owner and how they behave. Koujaku's Allmate is full of ridiculous anger despite it's tiny size and form, Noiz has had plenty of time to study him, he's visited his owner in the hospital enough. He's not sure why, Rib isn't his thing and he's not even hugely into Rhyme yet despite a few guys having seen him play and insist he make some sort of team. But his Allmate suits him, it displays all of his hidden rage, his fury, his sense of burning unfairness at everything that has happened to him. Beni makes the agreement he made with the Yakuza seem logical. Beni is his anger personified, his true self that he keeps hidden behind flirtation and charm.

He tells his apparent fans he's not a team player and shakes them off at the nearest possible opportunity.

Other Allmates are similar, the mildly obnoxious woman who runs the post office has some hideously overdone dog that is the height of pretention and snobbery, and that suits her down to the ground as a terrible gossip who seems to think she is above most people.

Ren is different, he hasn't gained a personality that reflects Sly at all, he is not a guard dog who would defend him in a fight, unless maybe things got really bad and Sly was about to die. Instead he has morphed into what Sly needs, the voice of logic and sense, he has turned into a sort of guardian for him, who tries to keep him out of trouble and tells him things as they are.

Noiz wants to take him apart and figure him out, but Sly would kill him if he tried, so he remotely hacks into his servers instead.

The chip in Sly's shoe sole places him in the old apartment complex Noiz had pointed out to him, and Ren's processors are going into overdrive with internet searches on facial wounds and rate of infection. Things aren't going well then.

Searches for grief, depression, personality disorder, self-harm.

Noiz feels a pit in his stomach, sets his own Allmates, giddy, excitable things, to notify him immediately on any worrying updates, and settles down for an uneasy night's sleep.

* * *

"Sly, Sly. Wake up," he does, and he isn't happy about it, the voice startles him into abrupt, drowsy consciousness and his face stings harshly as his head whips up from the pillow and leaves dried blood behind.

"What?" He is disoriented, his hand raises to his face and promptly away with a hiss of pain.

He doesn't remember what happened for a minute, then it flood backs and-

"Oh." Ren had woken up automatically as his sensors gauged a sudden change in Sly's physical state, increased heartrate, loud vocalisation, he had run over on his stubby legs, wormed between his arms and forced his hands away from his face, lapped at his tears, sat with him through his hysteria until it lapsed and he was left sobbing dryly, nosing into his stomach to try and provide comfort.

He had bitten the hem of his jeans and encouraged him to crawl into bed, slowly pulled the covers over him, nestled into his neck, lapped softly, reassuringly against his chin and felt Sly's heartrate slow, his breathing even, his hysteria come to an abrupt end as he fell asleep, exhausted.

"Hey Ren," he holds out a shaky hand to reach for him, and Ren butts his head against it. "You okay?"

"I am fine. You-"

"Just say it," his voice is quiet, his face really hurts every time it moves, blinking is painful and he can feel dried up blood caked on his neck and chin, scabs forming across his cheeks. The anger is gone, the fear, the desire to see his Granny and his brother, the wishing he was back at Noiz's with everything going ignored. He's just tired.

"You are displaying all the symptoms of severe depression."

It hangs there in the air, and he wonders if maybe he should be annoyed at that, upset at the implication. But he's right, and he knows it, it's a hole he's been in before, always managed to drag himself out of even as it hung around his shoulders like a black cloak he's carried most of his life.

He doesn't say anything for a minute, just turns the pillow over so his skin rests on fresh, unstained fabric and lies down. His whole body aches.

Ren opens his mouth again, maybe to add something else, to list his symptoms, to read out self-care advice that he's in no position to follow, but he never gets the chance to say anything.

"Shut _up_ , Ren," but he's so tired, feels so weak, so _delicate_ that he can't even fathom being angry, words whispering out and feeling his chest tighten as his eyes begin to leak by themselves, shaky breath almost like a sob escaping as a small pink tongue laps at his wet cheek, dog whining against his skin and curling into his arms as he pulls him closer.

"I'll be okay, Ren. I've dealt with worse shit than this," Ren doesn't reply, but something in his eyes says he doesn't believe it, something in the way he nudges over a packet of beef jerky and rolls a bottle of water his way says he knows Sly is not okay. It says he knows he needs help he cannot provide alone. It says he is genuinely afraid when Sly settles down to sleep that night, face cleaned with icy water from the dripping faucet in the bathroom, when instead of curling up next to him like he usually does, he lies down a short distance away instead.

He is observing him, just waiting for the next break.

He is trying to look after him, but for Sly it seems like he's anticipating something.

He doesn't doubt Sly, he has dealt with far worse, with Scratch, and his parent's abandonment, most days involve dealing with something unpleasant. But it's never been this much at once, and maybe that's what has Ren scanning the area for the closest human.

Just in case he can't look after him alone.

Just in case he does something stupid.

Just in case.


	5. Chapter 5

There are things to do, things to be done, things that will help. There's counsellors to text and medications and self-help exercises with deep breathing and positive affirmations. There's yoga, and writing exercises, he could pretend a chair is his brother and talk to it, do the same with Mizuki, his parents, his Granny. He can scream at the chair until he's blue in the face, yell and wail and throw things at it, until he feels better, until it is _cathartic._ He still doesn't know what that means. He doesn't intend to find out.

He tunes Ren's advice out, and after a couple of days, after the ridiculous suggestion of 'scream therapy', which he's managed perfectly well on his own so far, he turns him off, and zips him into his gym bag where he remains.

He's almost out of food, he knows this, in the back of his mind, his meagre supplies won't last long, he needs to go to town, to stock up.

He has this feeling like he wants to curl up in somebodies' arms and cry. He's not sure Noiz would appreciate that, his Granny certainly wouldn't. Maybe he should go see them anyway.

But he doesn't.

He doesn't do most things, he'd been washing himself with a rag at the sink, but it seems like too much effort and the cold water hurts so he stops doing that. He doesn't feel like eating much, he picks at a cookie over the course of several hours, extricating all the chocolate chips and lining them up neatly on the bare floor. The majority of it crumbles between his fingers and ends up in a sandy pile he blows away with a neat puff of smoke.

It's hard to explain, the way he feels, it's sort of a numbness while at the same time, there are a million, _billion_ emotions weighing him down. It's like he's so crushed by feelings that his brain has given up on trying to sort them out, and has opted for blatant ignorance instead. His hands are cold, his feet tingle when he moves them, and he stumbles when he walks out to the balcony to piss over the edge.

He could use the toilet, it still flushes, somehow. But he doesn't.

He doesn't cry any more, he thinks he got rid of that within the first couple of weeks of being alone here. He considers that maybe he's too dehydrated to produce tears. That's probably a whole problem of its own, but the tap water sends shooting pain through his teeth and he's been managing to avoid the vodka for a little while. He thinks maybe he can manage a little bit longer.

Maybe.

He finds somewhere else to stay, even further out, there is no running water or flickering fridge here. It's lit constantly, a soft blue glow that washes over his skin. There are no windows.

Ren tells him they should leave, the air smells dank, the floors are wet and the low ceilings drip into dark puddles that soak his only pair of socks. He tells him to shut up and roots through his bag for some medicinal aid, drowsy with exhaustion and beers that had almost killed him to drag back here from town. That will be his last trip to the centre of the island and he knows it, he will not return again now.

He is weirdly at peace with that.

* * *

Across the mainland, where people live their regular lives, things aren't going well either. Sly has somehow caused disaster in several lives other than his own without even realising it, disaster follows wherever he goes, and nobody is sensing that more than Tio.

Sly has made him realise he might want Mizuki, that Mizuki might want him, that he might be okay with that. This has bubbled and boiled over and what started as an innocuous but malicious comment from the blue haired _asshole_ has managed to spark off a huge chain of events within Dry Juice.

Three of them at any rate.

The message just says, _'can we talk?'_

Which, honestly, isn't that reassuring, especially considering the horrible levels of anxiety Tio has been feeling recently.

He replies anyway, **'right now?'**

 _'Sure.'_

It's even worse when he arrives and Kin just opens the door for him and promptly moves away, he comes back with cans of coke and while Tio pops his open and makes himself comfortable on the couch, Kin lingers on his feet and just fiddles with the metallic tab. It feels like another ultimatum, and after the last one Kin gave him, he isn't looking forward to another. The bubbles sink into his stomach and rise back up as bile.

"What did you want to talk about?" He asks like there isn't a thick lump in his throat that's making it hard to swallow, like he doesn't know what 'talking' really means, like he's calm and casual.

"Us."

He attempts a laugh but it doesn't go well, nor is it received well.

"I'm being serious right now, Tio. Okay? I can barely do this as it is, let alone with you laughing like something is funny."

"Sorry," he's never heard Kin so angry before, he seems frustrated, he looks tired. These are all things Tio notices, things he has most likely caused, sees reflected in himself, "what's wrong?"

"This. Us," he's still frustrated and Tio can't understand why, what he means by 'us.' "I- I talked to somebody about it, about you, and I- I can't do it, Tio. I can't constantly work around your bad moods and the stupid arguments about everything."

Tio feels like he's falling through the couch, his stomach has dropped, his hands slip and coke spills onto his leg in a sticky puddle but he barely notices. There's ringing in his ears and he can't think of a single thing to say.

"I just- I just need a break from it? Alright. You're just- You're being so _difficult_ lately and I can't handle it anymore. I try to do the right thing but I always get it wrong and I just- I'm sick of your constant abuse."

"My what?" His hands are shaking, his whole body. He thinks he might pass out.

"The abuse, Tio, you know, the stuff you fire at me every other day? The fighting, the yelling, me doing everything wrong, never being able to make you happy. I'm just so _sick_ of it. I just- Can we just have a break? Please. I can't take it."

He sounds like he's going to cry, but Tio is fixated on his choice of words.

"Abuse?"

"God, Tio, are you actually that unaware? Yes, abuse! When I do nothing wrong and you start screaming at me, when you try to break up with me and I try to make it work and you _shove_ me and get me burnt! _That_ abuse."

"I'm not abusive." He is outright denying it, preserving his sense of morality, of being one of the good guys, his voice is flat and totally emotionless and his heart is beating so fast it's like a metronome in his chest, counting down to disaster.

"No you're- You're not, but it's- We're toxic, right now. You throw a lot of abuse at me, about _anything_ you don't like. I've lost track of what it is I even do to cause it! I- I know something's bothering you, but you won't tell me what it is so I can't help, whatever it is is making you treat me like shit."

Tio's going to cry, his mouth is slightly open and his eyes are pooling with tears because he is _abusive_ and he needed to be told to realise it. Kin sees this, sighs, pain in his eyes, and comes to sit beside him on the couch. The offered drinks seem pointless politeness now, one sits unopened and the other is never going to be finished, it will be poured away down the sink with the last of Tio's self-respect. He holds his hands and they tremble. "Tio, please, don't be upset, I'm not trying to upset you. I love you, you know that, right?"

He shakes his head, he didn't know that, he's never said it before. Kin's sat too close, he can surely see him shaking, see his blown out pupils and pale skin that is suddenly frozen cold.

"Well, I do. I don't- I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I just need a break from us, just for a bit, I think, you need to decide what you actually want. And I just- I just need some time. Okay? Whenever you want to talk, I'll be right here, okay?" He is somehow being nice while utterly destroying him, tearing apart his entire self image and being kind and warm and loving while he does it. Tio is dizzy, disoriented.

"Okay," he says, and he lets Kin kiss his forehead and linger close for a minute. He stands up, drink forgotten, pants wet and head terrifyingly empty. "I- I need to go."

Kin grabs his hand again as he heads for the door, "Tio, please. Whenever you're ready to talk, I'll be right here. I really don't wanna lose you."

"Yeah. You just can't take any more. I get it," he shrugs, voice devoid of emotion, shakes him off, and turns the doorknob.

He gets back to his place somehow, he thinks he blundered his way through the streets here on muscle memory alone because he doesn't remember any of the journey after the door of Kin's place closed behind him.

He lights a cigarette and his hands are shaking so badly that he drops it onto his already wet pant leg, leaving the tiniest hole in the material where it manages to remain burning as he yelps and grabs at it.

The word 'abuse' is ringing in his head and he's terrified because Kin is right, he starts fights he doesn't need to, about things that aren't even important to him, about things he doesn't care about. He starts fights for the sake of it and keeps on going even when Kin is clearly trying to shift the conversation elsewhere, he doesn't give him a choice, if Tio has decided they're fighting, they're fighting.

They are one-sided, their arguments, it is always Tio yelling at Kin first, and even when Kin joins in, gets annoyed too, it's only because he's been wound up so tight, had so much verbal shit thrown at him, that he snaps. Kin never wants to argue, he never wants to fight, he tries his hardest every single time to de-escalate the situation, but Tio never gives him the chance to.

He is _abusive._

He doesn't know what to do, Mizuki knows about the situation, would understand why being called abusive would bother him so much. But then Mizuki kissed him a week ago and Tio didn't stop him and he really shouldn't be by himself with him when he's this shaken. It will end badly and Kin clearly doesn't need any more reasons to hate him, to think him a cruel, callous, unemotional animal.

He messages Yuu and he is so filled with panic and fear and _anger_ he refuses to address or acknowledge, that the detailed paragraph he planned on typing devolves into a single word that best sums up what he needs right now.

 ****'Help'** **

_'Help? '_

 ****'Please'** **

_' What 's wrong? Did something happen? Are you okay?'_

 _'Tio?'_

 _' Okay I 'm o n my way'_

 _'Be about 15'_

"Help has arri- Whoa, what happened? What are you doing?" He'd received the message with a snort of amusement at first, thinking of some minor inconvenience, because really, just the word 'help', doesn't give a lot of context. If it were a really emergency, he thinks, he would have called. But then he doesn't respond with more words, he just repeats his plea and somehow he can feel thick desperation coming off the single word he sends, the tone turned begging, and when he doesn't get a response he begins to feel worried. His mother takes one look at his face and tells him to go, she can frost the cupcakes herself.

He runs, it's not a long way but he's thinking of what Tio has told him and what Kin has, thinking of what might have happened. He's picturing blood, not… _This_.

The printer is buzzing into overdrive, there are sheets of paper spread across the coffee table, spilling onto the floor and the printer keeps churning them out, Tio's hands frantically scan through his coil, reading article after article. He doesn't even seem to notice Yuu's arrival.

He frowns, stepping cautiously through the living room and picking up one of the sheaths of paper, it's an online article from some organisation in mainland Japan, "battered wives? Tio, what is this?" He ignores him, crumpling paper underfoot as he grabs another few sheets off his printer, feverishly searching through them and thrusting them in front of Yuu's face so fast that he flinches.

"Look, look at this, 'Six traits of an abuser'."

"Tio, you need to calm down. What's happened?" He takes the sheets off him, scanning down the list, barely able to take it in, it keeps mentioning battered wives and boyfriends being jealous of their girlfriends taking to other men.

Tio takes the sheets back, waving them at him with an increasingly manic expression, as if suddenly Yuu will click into understanding if he just silently throws articles his way, "jealousy, pettiness, sarcasm," he flicks the pages, searching frantically, stabbing a sentence with his finger until the paper threatens to rip. "Superiority, an abuser will often put others down to make themselves feel better. Pettiness, focusing on one small detail of a relationship, making a big deal out of nothing, starting arguments over minor events."

"Tio, please, just- Just sit down, okay?"

"Sarcasm comes in many forms, more often with abusers it is hostile and meant to shake the confidence of the recipient. Manipulation, wanting things their way all the time with no consideration of the other person's feelings or desires." He sounds like he's just made some sort of scientific breakthrough, like everything suddenly makes sense now, and Yuu is feeling more and more unnerved. "That's me, this is all me! I have all the traits of an abuser!"

"No, no you don't- You need to calm down, you're freaking me out."

"Atmospheres around an abuser may often be tense or make the partner feel they need to 'walk on eggshells' to avoid displeasing the abuser."

Yuu is trying to get him to shut up, the hairs on the back of his neck are rising and he realises it is because Tio is frightening him, he's scared of the wild look in his eyes, the way he scours through the papers like a crazy person, like he's having a breakdown. He keeps reading out trait after trait, deceit, being possessive, superficially charming, more and more and more. Yuu's head is ringing and Tio keeps talking over him when he tries to get him to just-

"Stop it! For fucks sakes, Tio, stop it! You're scaring me," he doesn't want to yell at him, he doesn't want him to know how he's making him feel, he doesn't want to add to the image of himself as an abuser he is building.

"You're scared of me?" He's deflated, all of his manic energy has subsided, his vice grip on the papers falters and they softly tumble to the ground. His eyes are filled with tears and Yuu is distinctly not equipped to handle something like this.

"No, never," he walks up to him to prove it, rubbing his hands down his arms in a manner he hopes is comforting. "Just- put the papers down, have a seat, okay? I'm going to get you some water, then we can talk."

He leans his forehead against the cool edge of the metal sink, sighing into the empty space, taking a moment to compose himself and wonder if this is his fault, if his talk with Kin has just made things worse. He wonders what Tio has done to him, then feels bad for assuming the worst. He's never believed, even for a moment, that Tio is violent or cruel, but after talking to Kin, he has to admit that he's doubting himself, and the cold shock of fear that he'd felt as he'd listened to Tio rant hadn't been a sensation he'd enjoyed.

"Okay, tell me what happened." He hands the glass over and Tio holds in with both hands but doesn't drink it, just stares at it.

"Kin broke up with me. He said he- He said I'm too difficult and he can't do it anymore. He can't- He can't handle the abuse," he tries to put the glass on the table but his arms are shaking and he misses by an inch or so, water spilling onto the papers and making the ink smudge into an incomprehensible mess. He doesn't seem bothered, he just buries his hands in his hair and tugs a little, voice cracking, "I don't know what to do."

Yuu doesn't really know what he should do either, "Tio, you know I'd never believe that you'd do anything to hurt him, or anyone. But did something happen? An accident? An argument that got out of hand?"

"No. He said he can't take the arguing all the time, me putting him down and fighting him on everything," he wipes at his eyes, when he exhales it's shaky and his breath hitches. "Wait- You, you think I hurt him again?"

"No, no, I don't think that at all."

"Then why would you ask that?" Yuu has no idea what to say, his mouth opens and shuts without any words coming out, Tio's tone is getting hard, argumentative, and Yuu hates that he feels vulnerable sat here on his couch. "You agree with him, don't you?"

"No, I think you're having problems, I don't think you're abusive."

He's trying to be calm, but Tio is getting shrill, pointed with his words, accusatory, his face contorts and it is almost frightening, "problems? What problems?"

"I talked to Kin, about, the two of you."

"You told him."

"No! I would never, Tio, I promised you I wouldn't and I didn't," this is distinctly not going well, Tio's on some kind of emotional ride and Yuu isn't much enjoying being strapped in beside him. "I said he should talk to you, figure out what he wants to do, see if there's a way to make it work."

"This is your fault," he doesn't look angry, he looks hurt. It's sort of relieving to know he isn't about to lash out, but now his eyes are wet again and Yuu would have done better if he'd never even opened his messages. "I told you that because I needed to get it off my chest, not so you could use it against me by making him think I'm some sort of monster!"

"Tio, no, I didn't mention anything about it. I swear, I just told him to think about what he wants, I didn't tell him anything I shouldn't have done."

"You still talked to him behind my back, you practically convinced him to break up with me. I thought you were my friend," he's stood up now, Yuu mirrors him, hands help up defensively, whether Tio notices, recognises the pose isn't clear. He certainly responds though. "Oh, you think I'm gunna hit you or something? Do you actually agree with him?"

"No, I said I didn't, Tio, you just- You just need to sort some things out, that's all."

"What things? Why does everybody keep telling me I need to sort things out, I'm fine!"

He takes a step back, his feet crumple articles, his pulse drums in his head, "you need to calm down, I'm not trying to attack you," bad choice of words.

"I'm trying to attack you, that's it, right?"

He keeps trying to placate him, it's not going well and when he says he needs to go, he'll come back when Tio has had some time to think, to calm down, to get ahold of himself, he tells him to get out and slams the door behind him.

* * *

He kicks Yuu out, grabs the papers in messy handfuls and throws them into his bin with such force the whole thing tumbles over onto the kitchen floor, spreading potato peelings and old fruit cores across the tile. He scrabbles round on his knees, shoving it back in, getting papers out from under the sofa, hiding it all like the problems will disappear alongside it.

His hand brushes against the photo album and his entire body goes icy cold and still as he pulls it out and stares hard at the worn leather cover. He can't bring himself to open it, he knows what will greet him on the first page. It would be looking into a mirror.

He wants it out of his house, he wants to set it on fire, to get a bat and smash it and smash it until all the photographs are warped and distorted, he wants to tear at it with his hands.

He shoves it under his arm and he can feel it burning through his hoodie.

His apartment door slams behind him, and he doesn't know what expression he's wearing, but the friendly old lady who lives opposite just moves out of his way when they pass on the stairs.

He wonders if she is scared of him too.

His sister answers, and she looks genuinely really happy to see him, smile breaking out across her face and mouth opening to greet him.

She never gets to finish the greeting though, Tio shoves the album into her unsuspecting hands, one of the corners leaves a red mark across her soft forearm.

"I don't want to see his face, _ever_ again. He ruined my entire fucking life. Tell Mum I hope she's really fucking proud of herself and her shitty decisions."

He can see her, his mother, she's sat at the dinner table, had stood when he started yelling, when he flung the album over without even considering that it might hurt his sister, that it might scare her. She's making a path for the front door but he's already stalking away when she starts calling after him, she calls him sweetheart. He can hear his sister crying. His mother imploring him to come back and talk. Her apologising.

He just keeps walking.

* * *

He decides he wants to be outside, and, leaving Ren and all his worldly possessions in his newly claimed bedroom of sorts, he makes his way up and into the real world. He'd dragged the thin excuse for a mattress out of the crumbling apartment and down into the rubble below, and blearily makes his way over to it. His pockets are full and he empties the contents messily in between his legs, taking a swig of vodka and tilting his head back, barely managing to stay sat upright.

He stays there quite a while, watching the sky turn darker and his vision getting blurry around the edges. He feels warm for the first time in days, and for a split second he thinks he might feel better now.

Then the vodka bottle slips and spills onto his trousers and it's somehow the last straw. He stares at the damp spot, and thinks of his brother, and Granny, and Mizuki. He thinks of the things he's lost and his eyes burn but they're still dry and he hates this spreading numbness even as he embraces it.

It's stupid, because he'd always known he was going to die alone, to leave behind not a single person that would miss him, he'd accepted that, come to terms with it, had no complaints about it whatsoever. But he'd glimpsed something else and allowed himself to want it, had let himself feel that maybe some people weren't all bad, had felt happiness, warm and bright in his chest, had let loneliness creep in to the edges of his mind.

He couldn't remember if he'd been lonely before, but he had the feeling that the answer was no, he hadn't known what it was enough to feel it, but now he'd felt something else it suddenly hit him harder and more painful than any punch.

"I think we're over," he can still remember Mizuki saying that, the dull, flat monotone of his voice, the way he fled the room afterwards like he couldn't stand to be near him, it seems strangely distant now, though that could be because of the drugs, or maybe the fuzziness behind his skull.

He feels strangely sticky, turning his head to the left on the mattress to stare out across the open ground. The sky is bleeding, reds and oranges and cruel yellows that burn his eyes, he wonders if Mizuki's watching it, missing him, or if he's wrapped up in somebody else, forgetting about him the same way Sly's been trying to forget. The drugs are like decaf now though, they don't make him feel the same way they had before and he can feel warmth running down his arms onto his jeans, staining them the way his soul had been tainted by soft touches and warm olive he still can't stand to see in anything else.

He's getting light headed now, dizzy almost, feeling his consciousness slip away and not doing much but blinking quietly, wondering if it always felt this soothing to die, to lie there still and watch something beautiful and let his life trickle away down his wrists. He can still make out the faintest shine of metal where his left hand grips it, digging into the soft skin but he can't feel it, the dealer had been right about the patch he'd stuck to his arm, drugs slipping slowly into his bloodstream numbing him from his stomach out so he feels nothing but peaceful.

Then in the last seconds, where his vision begins to flicker and fade and his breathing grows slow and laboured, he can almost smell warm tanned skin, cigarettes and ink and strong black coffee, surrounding him like a shroud and so comforting that he feels hot tears drip down his face. He can hear his voice in his ears, soothing him even now, whispering words of comfort and love and in his state he thinks they're real, rolling over as if he'll be able to see him where his vision sparks and screams with multi-coloured stars but none that same green.

There are fingers trailing through his hair and rough hands wiping his tears away even as they fall faster and he should have known that he wouldn't be able to slip away easily, he was always going to be there in the back of his mind, or usually at the front. Even now, on his deathbed all he can think about is Mizuki and how much he wants him to be here, to save him or not he doesn't know, but he wants him more than ever now.

Like a scared child, he can feel those eyes on him even as he knows they aren't there, just one final, cruel trick of his body as it dries up and he runs out of life fluid, staring out at the starless sky and knowing for certain that Mizuki isn't sharing this moment.

The only way he can make everything better is by dying, he'd taken the easy way out as always, so why does it feel so wrong now, feeling sheer panic in the second where his eyes close and everything slips away because he almost thinks he can hear a soft voice saying it isn't his time.

* * *

Five weeks since he disappeared. Noiz knows, knows it has been five weeks. Almost to the hour. He has his Allmates wired into his Coil, the spreadsheet updates automatically as Sly's numbers change, his heart-rate and temperature, the searches Ren runs ping through to the rabbit-cubes milliseconds as their dog counterpart decides he cannot handle this without help.

The internet is a weak substitute for somebody who cares. For a real person. For a pair of hands and a voice that knows what to say, or at very least tries to say something helpful.

Noiz knows he was never that person, but somebody cold and bad with words is better than nobody at all and he wishes now that he'd made Sly stay, that he hadn't suggested he go. He feels like he didn't realise how broken Sly was, how far down into a pit. He thought that running for a while might help, but it seems like he's given up on running altogether. When it comes to Sly, that is a bad sign.

Sly's drunk, and Noiz tries to fall asleep to the buzzing of his Allmates. He never turns them off these days, they charge constantly, he cannot risk missing something important, something he could maybe, somehow, be able to act upon. His blood alcohol level is pretty high, but Noiz knows he can handle it, so he shuts his eyes and lies down and the Usagimodoki know to alert him without instruction. They are concerned about their master and their misdirected worry grates on him.

"Noiz! Noiz! Incoming report!"

He's upright in seconds, he hasn't slept properly in nights, it's been in hazy, unsatisfying twenty minute snatches. He'd like to say he's used to it, but even when he's overwhelmed with work he usually manages at least five or six hours of continual slumber a day. He'd like to say that this time it's because he has a lot of jobs stacking up, and it's true that he has a handful, but they have fallen by the wayside and every time he shuts his eyes he sees blue hair and Sly fleeing his bedroom. He hears muffled crying.

He hears Ren's internal motors whirring as he searches the internet frantically for help he cannot possibly provide. He's just a machine, a pet, if you want to see him that way, he isn't equipped to care for somebody, he doesn't even have opposable thumbs.

"Go."

"Sly's heartrate has slowed significantly. His temperature has dropped below a safe range."

"Safe range?" He's still groggy with exhaustion and the pathetic attempt at sleep he's just been roused from, his usually sharp mind is dulled and even as they speak he doesn't understand. Their voices are pitched too high, they're making his head throb and he rubs at his temples as he regards them. They're sat too still. They are always full of life, they jump and bounce around and cause chaos, it's irritating and reassuring at the same time.

They're barely moving and his stomach floods with ice, he can feel dread creeping up his chest and his breathing becomes tight. They're completely still, huddled in a little semi-circle on his bedside table.

Something is wrong.

"The numbers are not conducive to life."

He stares at them, unseeing. This is what he's been expecting, but somehow the urgency he expected to feel isn't there and his body is a lead weight against his mattress, his head feels so heavy he fears his neck will snap and his spine will tear free.

"He's dead?" He doesn't recognise his own voice, it is utterly blank, emotionless. There's nothing of him in it, nothing that speaks of a tentative friendship, nothing that shows how much he's been worried ever since he let Sly walk out of his door. He sounds like he doesn't care when the opposite is true.

"Negative. A pulse is still registering."

"How long does he have?"

"Based on his current trajectory, we would estimate three hours."

He opens his mouth but the sound of the apartment doors electronic bolt sliding open stops him, he's not sure what he was going to say anyway, "our data has the journey as taking roughly an hour and 48 minutes."

"Would I make it in time?"

The cubes look at him, then at each other. They don't speak, but that is louder than anything they could have said. The apartment door is still unlocked. He has a decision to make.


	6. Chapter 6

She doesn't feel good about it, but then, in a way it's difficult to feel bad about it too.

She takes a sip of her tea, it's warming and offers small comfort after a busy day, her back aches and she shifts in the wooden chair, creaking under her and closing her eyes in discomfort as her feet, swollen and tender, press into the cold ground.

The old grandfather clock ticks away as always, she's always rather liked that clock, she likes to keep track of time, to know where every minute of her day goes, no second wasted in idleness when she could be doing something important. But for now, she rests.

Four births this week, all healthy babies, ranging from 5lbs all the way up to a whopping 11. Five women and two men overjoyed to welcome their new addition, to be growing a family, brothers and sisters made in seconds as the placenta is cut and that first reassuring wail fills the room.

Only two deaths, one from old age, another from complications of pneumonia. Might as well count that as old age too. There is no hearse system on Midorijima, no undertakers to come and get the body, and little cause for autopsies except in suspicious circumstances, which happen almost never. One family left to mourn their father and grandfather, another buried in a quiet ceremony, no eulogy for him, nobody to remember, to grieve, even to to be relieved.

She wonders if that is possibly her fate, considers those who would be there to lower her into the ground, to wish her luck on her final journey. Yoshi, from the post office would attend of course, but she has poorly managed diabetes and is likely to go long before her if she continues to bake and consume at the rate she usually does. Insulin is hard to get to the island, one freak storm and residents are without medication, one more freak storm and she may suffer more than temporary blindness and a hospital stay.

Not Yoshie then, perhaps some of her patients, she is a household name throughout the island as one of few trained doctors, she thinks possibly her funeral would be crowded with babies she has birthed, children she has set bones for, men she has supported through cancer, women she has helped with the menopause.

She doesn't regret most of the choices she has made for herself, adopting had been the best thing she'd ever done, watching her daughter fall in love and marry had been like some sort of dream, the sort she never got to live out herself. Even after they leave, even after all these years without word, she cannot regret her choice to bring them into her life, just as she understood their need to adopt. Her grandson had brought her so much joy, had given her time to just enjoy her life, instead of trying to improve those of others. She'd known family, and happiness, and so much contentment.

Then they had left, their wanderlust too much to avoid, they had left her and their child and had never been able to return. She wonders sometimes if they had even tried. Secretly, she thinks she knows the answer.

She is a doctor, her life has been filled with illness and suffering since she was a late teenager, but it had rarely touched her, just those around her, her acquaintances and friends, the strangers she eases through fever and soothes their aches with painkillers.

She remembers the day she found him, her second grandson, whom her daughter had never known about, had read the reports from the orphanage and begged them to do a DNA test at huge personal expense. Overnight her family grows and she is overjoyed.

The good sense to stop and think leaves her, she doesn't think to ask why he is in the hospital to begin with, why that is where she found him, why the orphanage have signed his care over to them fully.

That, perhaps, she regrets, but she could never regret inviting him into her life.

He is only twelve, when she finds out he is terminal. She doesn't tell him, doesn't tell either of them, she sits with that knowledge all to herself and lets it fester. She is colder, more closed off than she used to be. She still loves them, with all of herself, but she is afraid and she cannot stand to admit that to anybody else.

He finally asks, just days before his fifteenth birthday, if he is going to die. Well, he didn't ask, he just said it, like he already knew, like he'd known for a while.

'I'm going to die, aren't I?'

She remembers it so clearly, the calm in his voice, the way he didn't flinch when the nurse prodded the needle awkwardly into the tender inside skin of his elbow, that he just watched serenely even as she apologised and tried for the third time.

She hadn't been able to answer, her thoughts had all circled to that one moment and she felt so hopelessly stuck in that small hospital room that all she could do was nod. It wasn't the right way to tell him, she'd planned it all out, a talk with him and his brother, his twin, maybe organising some kind of counsellor for him to talk to, to get him used to the idea.

'I thought so,' and he'd smiled, and reached out for her hand and the nurse had gone quiet, had given his free hand a quick, lingering squeeze as she had left the room with her sample.

The door closing had seemed so loud then.

Her tea is going cold, she blames the thin mug, but she knows its because she's sat there feeling guilty. Not for him, he had been so sick there was nothing she or anyone else could do. She had loved him, so much, and she'd had to let him go, had to accept that one day he would be gone.

No, she feels guilty that she favoured him, that his illness always came first, that Aoba was always her second thought, the rebellious, disobedient child. The child who refused to go to school and misbehaved when he did, the child who came home, aged fifteen, with a black eye and bites all down his neck.

The child who raged, and screamed, and smoked things that smelt like days old sweat and putrefaction in his bedroom against her orders, who hid empty beer cans under the waste in the kitchen bin, who stole money to buy them.

She is a doctor, has been a doctor for almost forty years now, and somehow she missed all the signs that something was wrong with him. She'd put all her attention into his brothers illness, making sure he was kept warm, fed well and healthily, didn't strain his body, paid him so much attention that Aoba and his worsening state slid under the radar, not unnoticed by any means, but absolutely misunderstood.

There'd been little sympathy, he'd come in at all hours of the night, in all sorts of states, drunk, high, beaten up badly, and her only words had been whispered, angry orders not to disturb his brother. Even that one night, aged fifteen with a black eye and bites all down his neck, when he'd come home and gone straight to his brothers room, she had ignored the wetness of his eyes and the wild, panicked look in his eyes, had pretended it wasn't there and ordered him to leave his twin to sleep.

She's wondered many nights since, what had happened, she'd acted like a prudish, out of touch elder even then, had assumed he'd just been messing around with somebody, a friend perhaps. It hadn't occurred to her at the time that he didn't have any friends, that he never had. It takes several years of pretending she isn't intelligent enough to know the truth, to admit to herself that maybe he'd been attacked, assaulted. That maybe he hadn't wanted it.

She knows she failed him, of two grandsons, she had stuck with one to the bitter end, and abandoned the other one the moment she couldn't work out how to connect with him, had thrown him away like trash and undoubtedly made him feel like less than that.

He was grieving, confused and angry, but seeming more put together than he had been in years, unmarked with bruises, his skin a healthy colour, a decent weight for once, clothes clean and hair shiny.

And despite all that, she'd sent him away, said she couldn't stand the sight of him. She'd bitten down her curiosity about the friend he was staying with, because he'd never had friends before and she was sure he'd mentioned two.

She'd left him in good hands, she thinks, this friend seems to take good care of him, better than she ever could. She thinks to herself, that he will be alright with this friend of his, that he is well looked after, and understood, and able to be himself.

This all sounds fine on the surface, but the truth of it is that she doesn't know this friend, doesn't know who he is, or where they live, or what they do. She doesn't know what Aoba is feeling, ever, he has always been confusing to her where his brother had been straightforward and honest, easy to read. He's staying with a friend, he says, and she sips her tea and purses her lips and thinks, cruelly, that the burden has been passed, finally.

She frequents his old haunts sometimes, strolls a risky way home from a regular call, medical bag heavy and old leather creaking in her grip, walks with her head held high through grimy alleyways and narrow back-streets. She's never sure if she wants to see him or not, but with each trip the guilt grows worse.

She's glad she's a doctor, because sleeping tablets are always easy to come by, and with the guilt growing and swarming and festering inside her brain, the quiet night-times are rapidly becoming the worst part of her day.

She told him not to come back, and as the moon dips down low, the house seems so empty without him, as if his absence is not one that has been keenly felt for years before her callousness.

There aren't a lot of things she regrets, possibly because she has lived so long by now, she's seen that there is little point in wishing she had done things differently. There are a couple of things though, that make her _wonder_ , that make her think about how different her life could have been had she just made that choice, not had that stupid fight, not left the window cracked just a little bit, just for some fresh air.

She wonders how things would have changed if she'd taken the ring, if she'd said yes to him and everything he'd wanted, the only person she'd ever been able to imagine even a modicum of a future with, before her daughter and subsequent grandsons, of course.

She considers that she could have had her own children, easily, with him or with another, though when she was young it was more of a big deal to have a child out of wedlock, if she'd really wanted one, she could have made it happen. Perhaps then her family wouldn't be three generations of people without an ounce of common blood between them, perhaps everything wouldn't have fallen apart when the island opened up, perhaps they would all have gone together.

Perhaps they would have all stayed.

She thinks she might regret letting them go, Haruka and Nain, but she couldn't keep them under her wing forever, they were old enough, stupid enough to make their own decisions, to flee the nest. Not their fault, really, that the nest never let them return.

* * *

Mizuki has learned none of the lessons that Tae has in her long life, he regrets _everything._ He frequently regrets being born, which is not only worrying, but also not something really worth regretting given that he had absolutely no choice in the matter.

He regrets the way he behaved when he was adopted, and the way he behaved when they returned him to the home they'd gotten him from less than a year earlier. He regrets that he didn't call them mum and dad, like they asked, he regrets that he didn't tell them why doing so didn't feel right. But then, he supposes that his explanation wouldn't have gone down well and he'd undoubtedly have regretted saying that too.

The thing with Mizuki, is that he doesn't learn. He frequently does something, knowing full well that he will regret it, and even with that knowledge he isn't able to stop himself.

Example A: Continuing to fuck about with Sly even after his disgust the first time. Admittedly, for a little while it had been alright and he hadn't felt like it was something he would regret. Then Tio had found out, and then Kin, and then he'd realised it was a terrible idea and he needed to stop it.

He tells himself to stop it quite often, it's just that he never does. Stop, that is. He continues until the bitter end and now he's basically dealing with a breakup that wouldn't have happened at all if he'd listened to his inner voice from the first time it piped up that Sly was too young and bad news and a mess and a liability and bound to ruin his life and, and, _and_.

Example B is less dramatic, and more commonplace: Drinking alcohol in copious amounts. Everybody Mizuki knows has had a too-heavy night and felt like death the next day, most people have sworn they will never drink again, only to get shit faced the very next time Friday rolls around and they repeat the cycle again.

But for Mizuki, it isn't quite like that. He has a tendency to become dependent, he knows that, and he also knows that Example B and Example A go largely hand in hand, his drinking meant he messed around with Sly, and became somewhat dependent on him as an escape from his day to day life. Drinking was sort of what brought them together, and in a sense it sort of drove them apart too.

He develops obsessions, and drops them just as fast. He spent six months of his life, aged nineteen, at the gym every single day, drinking protein shakes and eating only rice and grilled chicken, had dedicated his entire life to fitness, to bulking up, to becoming stronger.

Then one day he hadn't felt like it, and just like that the obsession dropped and he drifted for a while until he found another. Tattooing was one, sketching and designing and messaging clients filled up his time, and this time it seemed too much like a career for him to consider that one day he may get bored and drop that too, he builds his life around it, and luckily, he is still as in love with it as he always was.

Tio had been a brief obsession, and he often returns to obsessions later. He'd quit the hardcore working out obsession, and replaced it with fairly good diet and occasional sessions jogging or in his home gym. He'd replaced his Tio obsession with bartending, and growing his team, and fighting anyone who'd dared invade his turf.

Then, in time, he'd neatly swapped Tio out for Sly, and he had been the second human obsession.

He should have learnt the first time that they never, ever, end well.

* * *

He's onto his second bottle of wine when he decides to message Mizuki, and he's sort of hoping he won't reply when he presses send.

There's a long wait, after the initial message asking if he wants to hang out, and he only realises it's just after midnight when the reply buzzes through, he'll be ten minutes.

This is a bad idea.

But he pours another glass anyway and gets the beer out of the fridge, ready for his arrival. He's angry and upset but most of all he is _tired_ , tired of never being able to do anything right, tired of his past fucking up his future, tired of thinking about everything, it all swirling around his head like an increasingly deadly cyclone.

He wants to shut off, and he isn't worried about hurting Mizuki in the way he'd worried about hurting Kin. He and Mizuki are never going to be together, he knows this, they both do, he's not even sure he'd want them to be together any more, he thinks they both want different things. Mizuki doesn't frighten him, and after the mess of finding out about him and Sly and _still_ managing to be friends after it, he can't imagine ever doing or saying anything to him that would force him away the way he has with Kin.

"Pretty late for hanging out, don't you think?" He asks, but he's grinning and stepping past Tio as he shrugs and tries to keep his expression as neutral as possible, tries not to trip over his own feet and show that he's already a little tipsy.

"You didn't have to come."

"I guess not, that beer for me?"

Tio nods and he heads to the couch, uncapping a bottle and taking a deep drink.

He looks good, Tio thinks, simple, uncomplicated, his hair messy from the wind and shrugging his jacket off. He swallows, his mouth is flooded with saliva and he blames the bottle sat innocuously on the coffee table. "You okay?" Mizuki asks, eyebrows crinkled and focusing in on the circles under his eyes, the wrinkled mess of his shirt, flicking to the clock on the wall that says it is entirely too late to be doing anything but sleeping. Tio doesn't want to sleep though, he won't be able to and even with the alcohol-haze settling over him, his brain still buzzes with thoughts and what Kin had said and who he is becoming. He's moving around the apartment, bringing snacks in from the kitchen, bags of chips and dip, a bar of the chocolate he knows Mizuki likes, various sweets in bright packaging, dumps them unceremoniously onto the coffee table and shrugs again, doesn't answer the question.

"Kin broke up with me."

"Shit dude, why?" He looks genuinely upset for him, indignant that Kin would have the nerve to do something like that, as if it was in any way his fault

"Wasn't working out for him," he lies, blatantly, thinking even as he does of Kin telling him he loves him as if it was obvious, as if that made any sort of sense. He does not tell Mizuki they're just on a break for a little while, that he's giving Tio time to sort out the mess inside his head, he doesn't tell him that it isn't meant to be permanent, that Kin still sees some sort of future for them.

He definitely doesn't tell Mizuki that it's his fault in the first place.

"What about for you?"

"I told you, doomed from the beginning."

Tio flops, boneless onto the couch next to him, and across the island, Kin takes a sleeping pill and lies back, staring at his ceiling.

He doesn't tell him why they really broke up, they just both get really drunk instead, Tio finishes his second bottle of wine and finds another, Mizuki works his way through ten or so beers. It's not something they'd normally do, but both of them have just lost a relationship and both are in denial about it to everyone around them, it's not the best coping mechanism, but it seems like the best idea. Tio never was one to sit and stew in misery, and Mizuki is always up for one too many drinks and the bad decisions that will inevitably follow.

Mizuki is realising he put his trust in the wrong person, and Tio knows he put his trust in the right person and managed to fuck it up anyway. The situations aren't the same, but similar enough that it makes sense for them to get together and mourn their losses together. Misery doesn't love company, but miserable people do.

When he says they get drunk, he means they get _drunk_. They get rolling around on the floor everything-is-hilarious drunk, they get clumsy drunk, Mizuki falls on his way out of the bathroom and laughs and laughs as Tio staggers over to help and they both end up giggling on the floor.

At some point, Mizuki ends up in his room, which is a really bad idea, but also kind of seems like a really good idea. Wine makes Tio hot, and flirty, and giggly, and to be honest, kinda horny.

He usually tries to avoid wine because of those very reasons.

Which means it's definitely a bad idea when Mizuki ends up in his bed, on top of him, kissing at his neck and his jaw and down his front. It's probably a really bad idea, but, once again, it seems like a really good idea too. So he lets it happen, let's Mizuki spread him open with his fingers and doesn't even think to tell him where the condoms are, which means they don't use one and that is unquestionably a bad idea.

He lets his body slide across the sheets, let's Mizuki flip him onto his front, lets him drape over him. He lets him finish inside, biting at his neck, and in the weird, hazy, nauseous moment of completion, he thinks he hears the bartender say, softly, under his breath in a tone that says a lot and also nothing at all, " _fuck_."

He's pretty sure he mumbles something similar, but he's satiated and exhausted and Mizuki's body is very warm at his side, the alcohol swims behind his eyes and he's falling asleep before he can find the time to panic.

* * *

"Uh-oh," Mizuki sighs, voice croaky and hoarse, "I think we did the stupid thing again."

Tio drifts into consciousness feeling distinctly like he's going to puke, manages to open his mouth to say, "very stupid," and vomits onto his bedroom floor.

* * *

They don't talk about it, Mizuki is too hungover to move let alone to talk and Tio feels similarly, his head is pounding, stomach churning, and he's covered in a disgusting mixture of sweat and bodily fluids that are not his own. He feels disgusting, and also, weirdly, not at all worried about what had happened, about the lies that led to it.

He lies there, staring at the ceiling with Mizuki slumbering fitfully next to him, and thinks that this is so much easier than whatever he and Kin were trying to do. Lets his neck roll lazily to the right and stares at the bare planes of Mizuki's back, feels nothing at all and thinks that might be a good thing, to be unattached.

Around midday he manages to drag himself into the shower and forces down a piece of dry toast, emerging from his kitchen feeling like death to see Mizuki redressed and looking similarly horrific.

"I think, maybe we should forget this happened," he suggests, shuffling from foot to foot and looking at Tio somewhat intensely, trying to figure out what this is meant to mean, if anything, watching his reaction carefully.

"Forget what happened?" He asks, somewhat distantly, something cold and detached creeping into his voice even as Mizuki huffs a snorting laugh and rolls his eyes in amusement at his immediate agreement.

"That's the spirit," he says, finding his boots and pulling them on clumsily as his limbs refuse to cooperate, smiling up at Tio in a way that is so weirdly fond it doesn't fit the situation at all. "Take the night off, alright? I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay," he nods, and Mizuki closes the door behind him.

Tio stands there and stares at it for a long time.

* * *

The bar is pretty quiet, almost empty of customers, but the thudding of bass from the speakers is giving Mizuki a horrible, piercing headache and he grimaces at the mere sight of alcohol, offering a lazy wave to Kin in greeting and hoping it looks as casual as he intends. Last night he hadn't really considered that he'll have to see Kin, that he is now Tio's ex-boyfriend and that maybe there is meant to be some animosity there. He looks at him, stood behind the bar, shrouded in neon-lights and looking just as exhausted and beaten down as always, and wonders what he'd do if Mizuki told him where he was last night, what he was doing.

He decides not to risk it, heads out the back for painkillers and a bottle of cold water, and tells himself to pull it together for the rest of the shift, splashes water over his face in the employee bathroom and sprays himself liberally with deodorant.

If he stinks of cheap body spray, Kin is polite enough to not mention it, greeting him with a smile as he leans on the bar and lazily observes their patrons, keeping an eye on things and managing to look both bored and utterly casual as he does so.

"Tio not with you?" He asks, and if Mizuki was drinking he thinks he might have choked, feels like that was some kind of accusation for the split second before he registers his tone and tells himself to calm down, Kin doesn't know and he damn sure isn't going to.

"He called in sick."

Kin frowns, looks deeply troubled as he stands from the bar, crossing his arms over his chest loosely, "did he say why?"

"No, just said he felt terrible," it's not a lie, Mizuki feels like he's been run over by a significantly sized car, and it's likely Tio feels the exact same way, "why, did something happen?"

Kin glances at him then away again, shuffles on his feet and considers his words for a moment, "I think I upset him. I- I don't think he's actually sick."

"You guys fight?" Tio had been vague with his description of the break-up, and by vague, Mizuki means he told him nothing about it at all, which is weird and potentially suspicious, but he also knows it's really none of his business and Tio doesn't have to tell him anything unless he wants to.

"No," Kin says, then a girl approaches the bar with a smile and he breaks off to serve her and make small talk, prepares a tray of sour shots and a bottle of white wine in an ice-filled bucket, finds the appropriate amount of wine glasses and thanks her for the tip she leaves, waving off his offer to help carry the drinks over to her and her friends.

Mizuki thinks that's it then, he'll never know what actually happened, but Kin turns back to him and offers words freely, "We didn't fight, he- I think he's got something going on, he won't tell me what, but it's making it impossible to be with him."

"You broke up?"

"No," he says, laughs though his eyes are sad and crinkled, "no, we didn't break up. I just- Told him I wanted a break for a bit, while he works out what he wants, figures out whatever's going on."

Mizuki thinks _yikes_ , because Tio had absolutely misunderstood, had been very clear in the fact that they were no longer together at all and would never be, but from what Kin is saying, it's not as clear cut as that. "So you might get back together?"

"I hope so," he says, earnest to a fault and shrugging awkwardly. "He's a great guy, but you already know that."

"Yeah," he agrees, feeling a pit sink into his stomach as he realises that maybe Tio hadn't just misunderstood, that maybe he'd _lied_. "He's the best. I hope you work it out."

"Thanks, man," Kin smiles and claps him on the arm with an expression far too friendly and grateful. Mizuki stands there, swaying lightly on his feet and thinking that nothing is ever as simple as it seems. He thought he'd just done a stupid thing by taking advantage of the ending of a relationship, now he thinks he might have made himself the very thing that means it's never going to work.

No matter how hard he tries, somehow he is always the bad guy, but for once he isn't angry at himself, no, he's angry with Tio. Furious, and he's going to know all about it as soon as this shift is over.


End file.
